Can we remove a trillion tons of carbon from the #atmosphere?
▻https://theecologist.org/2018/may/03/can-we-remove-trillion-tons-carbon-atmosphere
RG: I describe the #oceans as being a vast oceanscape, like a landscape. Scattered around on that oceanscape are pastures that come and go, like pastures on land. So the ocean pastures of the world come into being when the necessary nutrients arrive. The most critical nutrient for photosynthesis is iron. It is the rarest substance in the ocean.
The background level of iron in the open #ocean, far from land, is only 3 parts per trillion. So when iron arrives, say in a dust fall from the Gobi Desert, or from the Sahara, the concentration of iron in the surface water rises from 3 parts per trillion to, say, 100 parts per trillion, or 1 part per billion.
When it does that, the ocean turns from blue to green immediately because iron empowers photosynthesis. So the potential is there to restore the ocean pastures of the planet. The ocean is not one single pasture; it is a collection of pastures.
