D.I.Y Planet Cooling

[Boerseun]

Why not just restore the whales to the oceans?

I like this idea.

 

Also, instead of using fancy massive pipe designs to force the bottom sea water to bring nutrients to the top to feed algae blooms to remove carbon from the atmosphere, whale poop should contribute to bigger and more productive algae blooms.

 

A bit off-topic, but not really, seeing as bigger oceanic algae blooms will have an impact on atmospheric carbon, but does anybody know anything about whale poop? Do whales push floaters or sinkers? If mostly sinkers, it won't do much for the algae.

 

Are there any cetacean scatologists amongst us? Any studies been done on this matter? And how would the recent human removal of whales (and the possible impact that might have had on algea blooms) influence the atmospheric carbon content?

 

Ponderous...

 

But yeah - I see a world of fat slobs hanging out in front of their energy efficient televisions watching documentaries about whale population recovery! That's the ticket!

[Michaelangelica]

LOL

Boerseun you need to take your pills EVERY day! :P

Interesting point is it true?

Burials are an environmental disaster.

 

Essay, my mind went fat- blubber- whales too.

The sea holds many possible ways of helping ameliorate GW/CC

 

maikeru

Azolla amazing stuff-- an oil indicator! the reason we know so much abUit it!-- money talks! But to cause, by itself, that massive lot of climate change seems too, too incredible. But i guess the next species to populate the planet will one day say that about us?

I will grow some azolla in my new pond . Do you use it as a fertiliser for garden/pots? What sort of results?

 

>>><<<

 

A government program here is giving $6,000 low interest loans to people to make energy saving improvements to their homes. Their brochure comes with the hint:- "put up your frig. temperature one degree. (Within acceptable food safety limits)"

So what are 'acceptable food safety limits'. AND how come frigs. don't have thermometers inside them? They have every other gadget known to man. If they had a thermometer we would be better able to judge how safe--and/or efficient-- the frig was

[Essay]

I'm sorry you don't find my post helpful. Would it be appropriate to share what I think about cooling the planet by boiling only one cup of water to make a cup of tea?

This "one cup" thing may be your problem.... :P

 

I expect you might do more for the planet with Three Cups of Tea.

 

:) :cup: :cup:

~ ;)

[Essay]

I like this idea.

 

Also, instead of using fancy massive pipe designs to force the bottom sea water to bring nutrients to the top to feed algae blooms to remove carbon from the atmosphere, whale poop should contribute to bigger and more productive algae blooms.

 

A bit off-topic, but not really, seeing as bigger oceanic algae blooms will have an impact on atmospheric carbon, but does anybody know anything about whale poop? Do whales push floaters or sinkers? If mostly sinkers, it won't do much for the algae.

 

Are there any cetacean scatologists amongst us? Any studies been done on this matter? And how would the recent human removal of whales (and the possible impact that might have had on algea blooms) influence the atmospheric carbon content?

 

Ponderous...

 

But yeah - I see a world of fat slobs hanging out in front of their energy efficient televisions watching documentaries about whale population recovery! That's the ticket!

===

 

LOL

Boerseun you need to take your pills EVERY day! :)

Interesting point is it true?

Burials are an environmental disaster.

 

Essay, my mind went fat- blubber- whales too.

The sea holds many possible ways of helping ameliorate GW/CC

 

maikeru

Azolla amazing stuff-- an oil indicator! the reason we know so much abUit it!-- money talks! But to cause, by itself, that massive lot of climate change seems too, too incredible. But i guess the next species to populate the planet will one day say that about us?

I will grow some azolla in my new pond . Do you use it as a fertiliser for garden/pots? What sort of results?

 

>>><<<

 

A government program here is giving $6,000 low interest loans to people to make energy saving improvements to their homes. Their brochure comes with the hint:- "put up your frig. temperature one degree. (Within acceptable food safety limits)"

So what are 'acceptable food safety limits'. AND how come frigs. don't have thermometers inside them? They have every other gadget known to man. If they had a thermometer we would be better able to judge how safe--and/or efficient-- the frig was

cetacean scatologists ahahhahaha :P

 

...but seriously....

We'd need to start the algal blooms first [in places where we knew they'd get eaten quickly] to restore the krill & small oil-fish populations (and some whale populations) to ramp up the whole food chain.

I know dead whales sink to the bottom and become the basis of a whole 'nother food chain down there (so the carbon is still sequestered).

 

IPY Census of Antarctic Marine Life - British Antarctic Survey

 

Saturday 8 March Trip to Unnamed Island - it’s all about the poo

 

This diary entry is from Dr James Smith, a geologist on board, who was one of a small party that were lucky enough to go on an excursion to a small island within Pine Island Bay for geological sampling.

The purpose of our visit was to look for other types of material to date in order to verify Jo’s data. We knew from Jo’s account of the island that it’s covered, quite literally, in a layer of guano or penguin poo. Fortunately for us we can date penguin poo very accurately using radiocarbon dating so in theory, if we could find a thick enough sequence of poo, it could tell us when the island was first colonised by penguins and therefore provide us with a minimum age for when the island emerged from beneath the sea or the ice sheet. After a quick look around the island we found a suitable mound of poo to sample.

 

14-15 March 2008 Sea Mount trawling

 

Tonight we did some trawling on one of the Marie Byrd sea mounts in an attempt to sample some corals for the geologists on board. The geologists were hoping to collect some corals to look at past carbon dioxide levels held within the coral structure. Deep sea corals had been previously discovered in the Amundsen sea region and initial analyses of them showed that some of them were alive during the last ice age! (between 12,000-24,000 years ago).

 

During the last ice age the concentration of carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere was about 1/3 lower than at the start of the present warm period. Climate researchers do not know the location of the “sink” for the carbon dioxide during this time. One explanation is that this carbon dioxide, which is in continuous exchange with the surface waters of the world’s oceans, was locked up as dissolved carbon dioxide in the deep Southern Ocean during the last ice age. Therefore, deep sea corals represent a unique opportunity for investigating if the deep Southern Ocean was the world’s carbon dioxide sink during the last ice age.

[...unrelated, but interesting, eh? The whole site is filled with things like this....]

 

But then there's this!

 

09 April 2008 - Worms, whales, wood and the Antarctic deep ocean

Adrian Glover, Zoology Department, The Natural History Museum, London. [email protected]

 

This week’s diary entry is from Adrian Glover, a scientist at the Natural History Museum, who specializes in polychaete worms and the fate of dead whales!

 

The excitement over the discovery of deep-water chemosynthetic ecosystems in the late 1970’s and early 80’s was justified, but the vent and seep biologists had missed something important. Chemosynthesis actually occurs in shallow water too, and is most frequently the result of biological activity rather than geological. In areas of low oxygen and high organic load, hydrogen sulfide is generated by the action of sediment-based sulfate-reducing bacteria. This might occur in muddy sediments just off the coast, or anywhere where there is a large and sudden input of organic material. In the late 1980’s, Craig Smith, and oceanographer at the University of Hawaii, was conducting submersible work using Alvin in deep basins of San Diego, California. On one of the dives with the small, 3-man craft, they came across what the pilots first thought was the remains of a dinosaur on the seabed. What they had found was in fact the remains of a huge fin or blue whale, it’s giant bones giving the appearance of some prehistoric monster on the submarine cameras. Even more remarkably, the bones were covered in a kind of bacterial mat known from hydrothermal vents, and vent-type organisms were found crawling over the remains of the carcass, feeding on the sulfide produced from the rotting bones. An intriguing hypothesis presented itself, potentially solving one of the enduring mysteries of hydrothermal vent biology. Could whale bones, scattered on the seabed, act as stepping-stones for the dispersal of chemosynthetic fauna across the vast distances of the abyss?

 

A sequence of subsequent experiments, including both implanted and naturally-found whale carcasses has shown for some organisms, over certain spatial and temporal scales, this may be the case. Even more remarkably, we have now discovered a suite of specialist whale-fall organisms, including an animal closely related to the hydrothermal vent tubeworms, called Osedax, latin for ‘bone-eating’. This organism, a polychaete worm, has no mouth or gut, but a distributed, branching root system that penetrates inside the bone matrix, and uses specialist symbiotic, whale-oil eating bacteria to gain energy. Viewed on the bone surface, the gills of the animal look like red flowers growing out of the bone itself.

 

Radiometric dating of whale bones on the deep seabed has shown that they may fuel a chemosynthetic ecosystem for more than 80 years - longer than the lifespan of many vent fields. The bones can be thought of as a hard substrate, like rock, but with a built-in energy supply - the rich oils that make up a large proportion of whale’s body mass, and was the source of a major biofuel industry for much of the 19th and early 20th century. Recently, we have also been looking at wood remains in the deep ocean as a comparable habitat to both whales and vents. Wood frequently washes out to sea and can be found littering the seabed along continental margins. Our early experimental studies from the California margin have suggested that they may also fuel chemosynthesis, but with lower intensity. They are also home to specialist wood-boring organisms, such as the shipworm, actually a worm-shaped bivalve mollusc.

 

===

 

...but for $6,000 I could put in a digital thermometer (and start a business selling them to other folks to put in their refrigerators too).

 

~ :cup:

[alexander]

I turn on AC and open the windows to cool the planet..... done, solved, next problem

 

(whatever you do DO NOT take that seriously)

[Michaelangelica]

Some propaganda posters

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=249677&id=12185972707