Liebniz Institute Rejects Geoengineering Oceans Scheme

The results of another study coming out of the Leibniz Insitute of Marine Science in Kiel, Germany, douses the idea that pumping nutrient-rich water up from the deep ocean to boost algai growth in sunlit surface waters is an effective way of ameliorating global warming.

“Computer simulations show that climatic benefits of the proposed geo-engineering scheme would be modest, with the potential to exacerbate global warming should it fail,” said study co-author Dr Andrew Yool of the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton (NOCS).

The plan to ‘draw down’ carbon dioxide from the atmosphere isn’t deemed effective, based on a new interactive model that deals with the straight-line analysis of how much carbon dioxide could in principle be contained with the scientific process.

In a linear analysis, the simulations show that — most optimistically — three gigatons of carbon dioxide per year could be captured.  Holistically, the new models provided other surprises. Using a more integrated model of the whole Earth system, the simulations showed that the main effect occurred on land, rather than the ocean.

The process would cool the atmosphere and land surface, slowing the decomposition of organic material in soil, resulting in about 80 percent of the ‘sequestered’ carbon dioxide remaining on land.

Worse yet, when the simulated pumps were turned off, the atmospheric carbon dioxide levels and surface temperatures rose rapidly to levels even higher than in the control simulation without artificial pumps. This finding suggests that there would be extra environmental costs to the scheme should it ever need to be turned off for unanticipated reasons.

Not being a scientist but an avid reader of information about the environment, and a now outspoken critic of environmental news and information as currently presented, I’m impressed with the scope of analysis and modelling efforts at the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences (IFM-GEOMAR) in Kiel.

Challenging as the effort is, from a modeling perspective, I believe that the researchers are examining the total effect of their assumptions and not only a single phase of the hypothesis.

One assumes that all climate research is done this way, but I fear not. Not every test can or should be carried out in a grand plan to measure the total strategy. Lots of individual experiments and linear models can verify basic assumptions.

Scientific schemes to reduce global warming or change the environment in any way must be put through this kind of holistic, scientific model that is interactive and measures impact on earth in unexpected ways. via Science Daily Ocean Geoengineering Scheme No Easy Fix for Global Warming

At the risk of asking a really supid question here, do scientific investigations of this sort team up with marine biologists to examine what would happen to marine life, coral reefs and other important ‘ocean matters’ if schemes like this one — now seriously discredited — were put into place?

The most relevant result of ‘Climategate’ could be an better explanation of how the environmental research process really works. At this point, I assume nothing, when the subject is a holistic model for the future of Planet Earth. Anne