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Green tides off China (4): More needs to be done and can be done …
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After LIU's presentation in Yantai, my first thought was to pay the nori farmers to clean up the mess after they harvest the nori. I was laughed at, literally, for being so naive. Ok, I was, because someone showed me an estimate for such a "payment," too much RMB to be realized, unless Bill Gates took interest in this "experiment."
Then, I read something else, including this article at EarthSky:
Then, I read something else, including this article at EarthSky:
...
Daniel Sigman: Algae require nitrogen to grow, and their bodies, in turn, fuel the rest of the ocean food web.
Sigman explained that by measuring algae’s use of nitrogen, he can gauge how much these ancient organisms used another important element – carbon dioxide, or CO2. All earthly plants use CO2 for photosynthesis. CO2 is also a major greenhouse gas in Earth’s atmosphere. Excess CO2 warms the Earth.
Daniel Sigman: The ocean is responsible for lowering carbon dioxide in the atmosphere as much as forests on land are.
That’s because algae take CO2 out of surface water. And, when the algae die, Sigman said, they sink.
Daniel Sigman: After the algae sink, they transfer the CO2 where it cannot escape into the atmosphere.
This helps cool the planet. Dr. Sigman is currently working to determine the role the ocean played in the global cooling that caused the last ice age. His early research indicates that algae in polar oceans might have played a role. This illustrates how the collective activity of many small creatures can exert a big influence on climate, he said.
Daniel Sigman: If you imagine more organic matter being produced in the world’s ocean surface waters and sinking to the deep ocean, that means more carbon removal from the atmosphere. That also means a lower concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
Sigman described the combined activity of many small creatures – the algae – as a “biological pump.” In other words, these living creatures acted to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and bury it in ocean sediments. He said that – because carbon dioxide acts to cool Earth’s atmosphere – this biological pump acting in Earth’s oceans might have helped triggered past ice ages.
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(For the complete interview and report, click the link above.)
If you are interested in using high-resolution images (SAR, Lidar) to "track" these green tides as a research project, please contact me.
...
(For the complete interview and report, click the link above.)
If you are interested in using high-resolution images (SAR, Lidar) to "track" these green tides as a research project, please contact me.
https://blog.sciencenet.cn/blog-306792-345942.html
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