Also, there’s a bunch of ways to make Algae blooms in the ocean. Apparently even just dumping a bunch of iron dust in the ocean would cause lots of algae blooms - but we don’t do it.
To work as a carbon capture mechanic, iron fertilization-driven algae blooms would have to die and sink to the bottom of the ocean, thus locking up their carbon in oceanic rock.
The concern is they would die and float, releasing all that carbon back into the atmosphere via decomposition gases. Then we would have all the effort of the fertilization, all the ecosystem disruption of the algae bloom, and maybe negative benefit as far as carbon since the ecosystem disruption could mess up carbon sinks that were actually working.
Fun fact, depending on your definition of “fun”. Deniers sometimes argue that plants will just grow to absorb the extra co2. This doesn’t work in general, because most plants aren’t limited by co2 availability. There are some exceptions, and the algae that causes red tide is one of them. So we have that to look forward to.
Because it has a lot of side effects and the oceans are under a lot of stress because of climate change already. So for the moment we don’t fuck with it.
So when we say Climate Change is an immediate and irreversible threat… There’s another clause there that’s something like: but not to us right now as a species, more to the biodiversity that would be put at risk if we tried producing more Algae? So we’re not going to address the “immediate and irreversible threat” in that way (use of algae), because it might upset other things in the ocean.
Would those other things be stuff like… Er… Important stuff. I’m just not sure about this stuff because I don’t know that much about Climate Change in relation to Algae and Oxygen production… And what/when the threat would warrant it.
Algae itself needs a functioning ecosystem to survive, to much algea will cause it to kill itself due to overpopulation (e.g. using up resources and dead algea not being cleaned up) while in a small scale humans can care for the algea, taking the place of the ecosystem, for any large area this would be unfeasible and the ecosystem including the algea would collapse.
A benifit of biodiversity is greater resilance to change, by selecting for the growth of specific algea using iron you cause other algea/plant that rely on the prior ecosys to die out (including those reliant on other organisms which died).
this group of less diverse algea will be more susceptible to change, (diseases or environmental change) and as most of the algea in the world will be similar, most of the algea in the world could get wiped out in one go.
So the likely outcome would be an initial spike in carbon capture before the environment becomes unsuitable, collapses, and most of the algea dies.
So all im all at any meaningful scale in the sea this is and will always be, a terrible idea.
(A better idea would be lots of small manigable algea tanks which could realistically be maintained and won’t affect the current diversity, diseases could also not spread between them. This would be expensive but could actually work as a long term solution)
Not trying to be a dick, but I figured Algae is still a carbon based life form… So I googled and it said: Uptake of CO2 by algae is approximately twice of the weight of algae.
But I assume other stuff is doing most of the heavy lifting… I think I remember something about coral forests, just trying to ask people who know more - what’s taking up all that carbon? Is algae a threat to it?
P.S looked it up, apparently seagrasses and mangroves absorbed the most carbon in the ocean, and Algae van risk sea grass by shading it too much… I still suspect they’re not totally at odds, because it didn’t say anything about being a direct threat, just making too much shade… Anyways. I’m sure others will comment.
EDIT: oh, maybe it’s that sea grass is more stable in its effects/consumption of carbon. Where as Algae patches probably float and fluctuate, or die off… But that probably fertilizes other stuff… I guess this is all why “sustainable” solutions are the focus…
It’s not just the uptake, it’s whether it stays at the surface, ultimately releasing the carbon back into the atmosphere via decomposition gases, or sinks to the ocean floor, thus locking up the carbon in oceanic rock.
We have a good handle on understanding the uptake. It’s the float vs sink part that has the critical uncertainty.
Also, there’s a bunch of ways to make Algae blooms in the ocean. Apparently even just dumping a bunch of iron dust in the ocean would cause lots of algae blooms - but we don’t do it.
To work as a carbon capture mechanic, iron fertilization-driven algae blooms would have to die and sink to the bottom of the ocean, thus locking up their carbon in oceanic rock.
The concern is they would die and float, releasing all that carbon back into the atmosphere via decomposition gases. Then we would have all the effort of the fertilization, all the ecosystem disruption of the algae bloom, and maybe negative benefit as far as carbon since the ecosystem disruption could mess up carbon sinks that were actually working.
Yes, because algae blooms are usually bad for everything but algae. Red tide is a bad thing.
And bad for everything but the algea is bad for the ecosystem the algea relies on to live
Fun fact, depending on your definition of “fun”. Deniers sometimes argue that plants will just grow to absorb the extra co2. This doesn’t work in general, because most plants aren’t limited by co2 availability. There are some exceptions, and the algae that causes red tide is one of them. So we have that to look forward to.
Because it has a lot of side effects and the oceans are under a lot of stress because of climate change already. So for the moment we don’t fuck with it.
How about instead we dredge reefs for a tiny amount of lithium. That seems like a good compromise.
So when we say Climate Change is an immediate and irreversible threat… There’s another clause there that’s something like: but not to us right now as a species, more to the biodiversity that would be put at risk if we tried producing more Algae? So we’re not going to address the “immediate and irreversible threat” in that way (use of algae), because it might upset other things in the ocean.
Would those other things be stuff like… Er… Important stuff. I’m just not sure about this stuff because I don’t know that much about Climate Change in relation to Algae and Oxygen production… And what/when the threat would warrant it.
Algae itself needs a functioning ecosystem to survive, to much algea will cause it to kill itself due to overpopulation (e.g. using up resources and dead algea not being cleaned up) while in a small scale humans can care for the algea, taking the place of the ecosystem, for any large area this would be unfeasible and the ecosystem including the algea would collapse.
A benifit of biodiversity is greater resilance to change, by selecting for the growth of specific algea using iron you cause other algea/plant that rely on the prior ecosys to die out (including those reliant on other organisms which died). this group of less diverse algea will be more susceptible to change, (diseases or environmental change) and as most of the algea in the world will be similar, most of the algea in the world could get wiped out in one go.
So the likely outcome would be an initial spike in carbon capture before the environment becomes unsuitable, collapses, and most of the algea dies.
So all im all at any meaningful scale in the sea this is and will always be, a terrible idea.
(A better idea would be lots of small manigable algea tanks which could realistically be maintained and won’t affect the current diversity, diseases could also not spread between them. This would be expensive but could actually work as a long term solution)
The ocean is the Earth’s largest carbon sink. If we fuck it up worse by “just growing algae” we would absolutely fuck ourselves 10x faster.
Not trying to be a dick, but I figured Algae is still a carbon based life form… So I googled and it said: Uptake of CO2 by algae is approximately twice of the weight of algae.
But I assume other stuff is doing most of the heavy lifting… I think I remember something about coral forests, just trying to ask people who know more - what’s taking up all that carbon? Is algae a threat to it?
P.S looked it up, apparently seagrasses and mangroves absorbed the most carbon in the ocean, and Algae van risk sea grass by shading it too much… I still suspect they’re not totally at odds, because it didn’t say anything about being a direct threat, just making too much shade… Anyways. I’m sure others will comment.
EDIT: oh, maybe it’s that sea grass is more stable in its effects/consumption of carbon. Where as Algae patches probably float and fluctuate, or die off… But that probably fertilizes other stuff… I guess this is all why “sustainable” solutions are the focus…
It’s not just the uptake, it’s whether it stays at the surface, ultimately releasing the carbon back into the atmosphere via decomposition gases, or sinks to the ocean floor, thus locking up the carbon in oceanic rock.
We have a good handle on understanding the uptake. It’s the float vs sink part that has the critical uncertainty.