Seaweed could be scrubbing more carbon from the atmosphere than expected (2017)
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Re: Seaweed could be scrubbing more carbon from the atmosphere than expected (2017)
#2At least one good news
Maybe we should look into farming seaweed (and other algae)
Re: Seaweed could be scrubbing more carbon from the atmosphere than expected (2017)
#3Really interesting. Makes me think of Daisyworld and the Gaia Hypothesis.
Daisyworld is a model Earth covered in black and white daisies, that either absorb or reflect light. In the model, black daisies need less light because they absorb more, increasing the Earth's heat absorption. White daisies absorb less so need more light, but also reflect more light back, increasing the surface albedo of the planet and lowering its ambient temperature.
Because of this, there's a feedback loop were even if the sun gets a little hotter or colder, the successful daisy would spread and either warm or cool the Earth in response, effectively acting as a stabilizer. Gaia theory suggests that the world is full of these stabilizing systems.
Anyone who ever played SimEarth in the 90s, it was based on this theory and even had a Daisyworld simulation built in.
In this case, the paper is suggesting that seaweed grows much faster in response to raised CO2, and then sequesters some of that carbon underwater.
One question I have is how sequestered the undersea carbon really is and whether it will have other, unknown effects on the deep see ecosystem.
Re: Seaweed could be scrubbing more carbon from the atmosphere than expected (2017)
#4Can we bio-engineer seaweed which doesn't decompose and can't be eaten?
Its not a joke - these were the circumstances of early Earth, before microbes evolved to digest lignin and cellulose. Trees would fall and not decompose, eventually being compressed into coal.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/phenomena/2016/01...
Re: Seaweed could be scrubbing more carbon from the atmosphere than expected (2017)
#5Can we bio-engineer seaweed which doesn't decompose and can't be eaten? Its not a joke - these were the circumstances of early Earth, before microbes evolved to digest lignin and cellulose. Trees would fall and not decompose, eventually being compressed into coal. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/phenomena/2016/01...
It would probably be dangerous to engineer an organism that doesn't break down. Imagine a living, growing plastic. Except not a Dr. Who villain.
Re: Seaweed could be scrubbing more carbon from the atmosphere than expected (2017)
#6Really interesting. Makes me think of Daisyworld and the Gaia Hypothesis. Daisyworld is a model Earth covered in black and white daisies, that either absorb or reflect light. In the model, black daisies need less light because they absorb more, increasing the Earth's heat absorption. White daisies absorb less so need more light, but also reflect more light back, increasing the surface albedo of the planet and lowerin…
We know that there are a number of homeostatic (self-regulating) processes that affect the proportion of CO2 in the atmosphere; if it wasn't homeostatic it would have drifted off to an extreme long ago. The key question is how well and how rapidly these mechanisms can respond to an increase in CO2 levels.
Re: Seaweed could be scrubbing more carbon from the atmosphere than expected (2017)
#7At least one good news Maybe we should look into farming seaweed (and other algae)
Re: Seaweed could be scrubbing more carbon from the atmosphere than expected (2017)
#8At least one good news Maybe we should look into farming seaweed (and other algae)
They've been farming seaweed in places like Japan since the 1600's/1700's and is a $2 billion industry. They also farm it all through south-east asia :)
Re: Seaweed could be scrubbing more carbon from the atmosphere than expected (2017)
#9Really interesting. Makes me think of Daisyworld and the Gaia Hypothesis. Daisyworld is a model Earth covered in black and white daisies, that either absorb or reflect light. In the model, black daisies need less light because they absorb more, increasing the Earth's heat absorption. White daisies absorb less so need more light, but also reflect more light back, increasing the surface albedo of the planet and lowerin…
> Because of this, there's a feedback loop were even if the sun gets a little hotter or colder, the successful daisy would spread and either warm or cool the Earth in response, effectively acting as a stabilizer. Gaia theory suggests that the world is full of these stabilizing systems.
There are several mechanisms in place on earth to stabilize changes in atmospheric composition and temperature (otherwise an sporadic eruption of a volcano or glacial eras would have thrown things out of whack long time ago). I don't think this is an hypothesis. We have seen some of them in action in recent years, like the advanced rate of reforestation due to larger levels of CO2 in the atmosphere.
The problem is we don't know what would happen if we push these to the limit or what their limit really is. And they are very complex in the way the interact. For example. Warmer oceans and larger levels of CO2 will make phytoplankton grow faster, absorbing more CO2 in return, but it will also accelerate the growth of zooplankton, that feeds on it. This creates a bottleneck.
So TL;DR: yeah, it's cool we have these mechanisms around but the goal should still be to keep things as close to the baseline as possible (and we have been really bad about it in the last century)
Re: Seaweed could be scrubbing more carbon from the atmosphere than expected (2017)
#10At least one good news Maybe we should look into farming seaweed (and other algae)
There are already significant seaweed farms in Japan, and farms exist in China, Korea, Fiji, Zanzibar, and even the UK.