Ocean nourishment
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Ocean Nourishment is the purposeful introduction of nutrients to the upper ocean to increase the marine food chain and to sequester carbon dioxide from the atmosphere (see Jones and Young). The marine food chain is based on photosynthesis by marine phytoplankton which combine carbon with inorganic nutrients to produce organic matter. The production of organic matter is limited in general by the availability of nutrients, most commonly nitrogen or iron. Numerous experiments (Coale et al) have been carried out demonstrating how iron fertilization can increase phytoplankton productivity in the high latitude waters. It is also effective in some lower latitudes (Markels and Barber). Nitogen appears to be the limiting nutrient in the rest of the ocean.
Ocean Nourishment offers the prospect of both reducing the concentration of atmospheric greenhouse gases with the aim of avoiding rapid climate change and at the same time increasing the sustainable fish stocks. It promises to do this by increasing the ocean primary production.
Ocean Nourishment promises to be a way of creating low cost protein in sufficient quantity to supply the needs of the additional two billion people expected to populate the earth before the population stabilizes at values near eight billion. While manipulation of the land ecosystem in support of agriculture for the benefit of humans has long been accepted it is a new concept to enhance the large scale ocean productivity and so creates some apprehension.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
Coale, K.H. et al. (1996) A massive phytoplankton bloom induced by an ecosystem-scale iron fertilization experiment in the equatorial Pacific Ocean. Nature, 383, 495-501.
Jones, I.S.F. & Young, H.E. (1997) Engineering a large sustainable world fishery. Environmental Conservation, 24: 99-104.
Markels, M and R T Barber (2001) Sequestration of CO2 by Ocean Fertilization. Proc 1st Nat. Conf. on Carbon Sequestration, Washington, DC.
