Germany Decides Not to Dump 20 Tons of Iron Into the Ocean

Phytoplankton Bloom off Namibia. NASA Photo

From an article in Nature:

“The German science ministry has suspended a planned Indo–German ocean fertilization experiment in the Southern Ocean, and asked the German research institute behind it to commission an independent assessment of the study’s environmental safety.”

“The scientists had planned to dump their cargo of 20 tonnes of iron sulphate over a 300-square-kilometre study area to induce an algal bloom. Stimulating algal growth with extra nutrients is believed to be one possible way of sequestering carbon dioxide from the air.”

At least one blogging scientist thinks the idea has merit.

At first, it sounds like a really bad idea. But we are in a dire situation, and if dumping iron into the ocean helps mitigate climate change it may be well worth the risk. I believe the concept is that the bloom of algae and the carbon it takes prisoner will die and sink to bottom of the ocean and be trapped there “forever” sequestering the carbon and keeping it out of the atmosphere for the foreseeable future. It would be awesome if the solution (or at least part of the solution) to climate change was so easy!