side effects and accounting aspects of hypothetical large-scale southern ocean iron fertilization
Clicks: 160
ID: 205971
2010
Article Quality & Performance Metrics
Overall Quality
Not rated
Combines reader engagement with the AI quality analysis. This
article has not been analysed, so there is no overall score —
reader engagement is measured and shown alongside.
Reader Engagement
Popular Article
30.0
/100
160 views
32 readers
AI Quality Assessment
Not analyzed
Readership in this journal
PopularRanked #182 of 345 articles by views in tetrahedron letters
Most read
Least read
Bar heights use a square-root scale. Only the 120 most-read articles are drawn; the journal has 345 in total.
Mint this article as an NFT
Not yet mintedCreate a permanent, verifiable on-chain record of this article on the Scimatic Network. The NFT is held in your Journament account, and you can withdraw it to your own wallet at any time.
5
SUSD
one-off · no wallet required
Abstract
Recent suggestions to slow down the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide have included ocean fertilization by addition of the micronutrient iron to Southern Ocean surface waters, where a number of natural and artificial iron fertilization experiments have shown that low ambient iron concentrations limit phytoplankton growth. Using a coupled carbon-climate model with the marine biology's response to iron addition calibrated against data from natural iron fertilization experiments, we examine biogeochemical side effects of a hypothetical large-scale Southern Ocean Iron Fertilization (OIF) that need to be considered when attempting to account for possible OIF-induced carbon offsets. In agreement with earlier studies our model simulates an OIF-induced increase in local air-sea CO<sub>2</sub> fluxes by about 73 GtC over a 100-year period, which amounts to about 48% of the OIF-induced increase in organic carbon export out of the fertilized area. Offsetting CO<sub>2</sub> return fluxes outside the region and after stopping the fertilization at 1, 7, 10, 50, and 100 years are quantified for a typical accounting period of 100 years. For continuous Southern Ocean iron fertilization, the CO<sub>2</sub> return flux outside the fertilized area cancels about 20% of the fertilization-induced CO<sub>2</sub> air-sea flux within the fertilized area on a 100-yr timescale. This "leakage" effect has a radiative impact more than twice as large as the simulated enhancement of marine N<sub>2</sub>O emissions. Other side effects not yet discussed in terms of accounting schemes include a decrease in Southern Ocean oxygen levels and a simultaneous shrinking of tropical suboxic areas, and accelerated ocean acidification in the entire water column in the Southern Ocean at the expense of reduced globally-averaged surface-water acidification. A prudent approach to account for the OIF-induced carbon sequestration would account for global air-sea CO<sub>2</sub> fluxes rather than for local fluxes into the fertilized area only. However, according to our model, this would underestimate the potential for offsetting CO<sub>2</sub> emissions by about 20% on a 100 year accounting timescale. We suggest that a fair accounting scheme applicable to both terrestrial and marine carbon sequestration has to be based on emission offsets rather than on changes in individual carbon pools.
| Reference Key |
oschlies2010biogeosciencesside
Use this key to autocite in the manuscript while using
SciMatic Manuscript Manager or Thesis Manager
|
|---|---|
| Authors | ;A. Oschlies;W. Koeve;W. Rickels;K. Rehdanz |
| Journal | tetrahedron letters |
| Year | 2010 |
| DOI |
10.5194/bg-7-4017-2010
|
| URL | |
| Keywords |
Citations
No citations found. To add a citation, contact the admin at info@scimatic.org
Comments
No comments yet. Be the first to comment on this article.