As others note, not all plankton is created equal; just as in human bodies a balance between bacteria and fungi create healthy conditions, getting a dramatic boost to one kind of plankton may throw things out of whack far down the road.
Perhaps an iron-hungry form of plankton (or algae) suddenly gains a foothold in the region, depleting other nutrients and sunlight from the existing balance of critters. As the iron levels go back to baseline and the opportunistic plankton gets absorbed into the food chain, now the existing food base is gone, just as a huge population spike of higher-on-the-food-chain species is ready to chow down.
You see this sort of effect in gulf "dead zones" where fertilizer (iron sulfate is definitely fertilizer in this case) has killed the existing balance and will take many years to reverse.
That said, perhaps some good could come of this type of practice. It's too bad this sort of vigilante experimentation is the only kind that can go on- if scientific bodies would endorse more research on limited scales, we'd have a lot more data for the potential damage.
Its an interesting conundrum. It isn't like the plankton aren't native to the ocean, there already exists a food chain that dines on them. And doing this experiment is no more or less 'dangerous' than re-introducing wolves to Yellowstone.
So what I don't get is when people propose even modest iron farming experiments they get the crap sued out of them or otherwise targeted. Why? Why not start small, measure, and move up? We're over fishing the ocean anyway, and nobody is doing anything about that. That is killing fisheries in the name of sushi. So why is this project so dangerous?
Its very curious. One of the risks of this investigation is success. Lets say we develop a way to moderate the CO2 content in the atmosphere to what ever level we want using iron (very abundant) and the oceans (also very abundant). Is that a horrible outcome some how?
vigilante experimentation is a good term for it. I don't know, I kind of respect it. I'm doubtful it could have the same level of negative effect as sustained fertilizer runoff, and if does a lot of good (i.e. effectively reduces CO2 and increases salmon numbers) can you really complain?
Comments
The trouble could come from numerous angles.
As others note, not all plankton is created equal; just as in human bodies a balance between bacteria and fungi create healthy conditions, getting a dramatic boost to one kind of plankton may throw things out of whack far down the road.
Perhaps an iron-hungry form of plankton (or algae) suddenly gains a foothold in the region, depleting other nutrients and sunlight from the existing balance of critters. As the iron levels go back to baseline and the opportunistic plankton gets absorbed into the food chain, now the existing food base is gone, just as a huge population spike of higher-on-the-food-chain species is ready to chow down.
You see this sort of effect in gulf "dead zones" where fertilizer (iron sulfate is definitely fertilizer in this case) has killed the existing balance and will take many years to reverse.
That said, perhaps some good could come of this type of practice. It's too bad this sort of vigilante experimentation is the only kind that can go on- if scientific bodies would endorse more research on limited scales, we'd have a lot more data for the potential damage.
Its an interesting conundrum. It isn't like the plankton aren't native to the ocean, there already exists a food chain that dines on them. And doing this experiment is no more or less 'dangerous' than re-introducing wolves to Yellowstone.
So what I don't get is when people propose even modest iron farming experiments they get the crap sued out of them or otherwise targeted. Why? Why not start small, measure, and move up? We're over fishing the ocean anyway, and nobody is doing anything about that. That is killing fisheries in the name of sushi. So why is this project so dangerous?
Its very curious. One of the risks of this investigation is success. Lets say we develop a way to moderate the CO2 content in the atmosphere to what ever level we want using iron (very abundant) and the oceans (also very abundant). Is that a horrible outcome some how?
vigilante experimentation is a good term for it. I don't know, I kind of respect it. I'm doubtful it could have the same level of negative effect as sustained fertilizer runoff, and if does a lot of good (i.e. effectively reduces CO2 and increases salmon numbers) can you really complain?
"Does a lot of Good" is a subjective term, and even if it weren't, the ends typically do not justify the means.