Introduction

In the past few decades, 'scientists' and the world are waking up to the fact of global warming.
The main cause is man's emissions of "greenhouse gases" into the atmosphere, with carbon dioxide being the principle culprit.

Since the 1980's, one suggestion to ameliorate the effect is to increase the draw down of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere into the oceans, where it might be stored for the long-term. The proposal relies on increasing primary productivity in the oceans in areas where there is currently minimal phytoplanktonic activity. This inactivity has been attributed to an iron deficit; so the suggestion is to dump tonnes of iron into these areas, to redress the shortage and promote phytoplankton growth.

This website addresses one proposal to extract carbon dioxide (CO₂) from the atmosphere, to ameliorate global warning.

It considers

• iron-fertilisation of the oceans, to
• increase phytoplanktonic activity, to
• increase CO₂ draw-down from the atmosphere, to promote (possible)
• long-term storage of carbon on the ocean-floor

Ecological problems

Whilst the theory sounds attractive, there are still far too unknowns; will it work, how will it be monitored, is it even legal?

More importantly - adding tonnes of unnatural iron into oceans we do not yet understand, to intentionally change the natural marine ecology, is causing major concerns amongst environmentalists, and the oceanographic scientists - who know more than anyone else, but still not enough.
Already, ecological changes have been seen in the experiment sites; and no real proof of long-term carbon-sequestration has been found.