Whale poo could help oceans absorb CO2-scientists
Whale droppings have emerged as a natural ocean fertiliser which could help combat global warming by allowing the Southern Ocean to absorb more carbon dioxide, Australian scientists have have found.
New research from the Australian Antarctic Division suggests whales naturally fertilise surface waters with iron-rich whale excrement, allowing the whole eco-system to send more carbon down into deep waters.
"The plants love it and it actually becomes a way of taking carbon out of the atmosphere," Antarctic scientist Steve Nicol told Reuters, adding the droppings appear as a plume of solids and liquids.
A larger population of baleen whales and krill would boost the productivity of the whole Southern Ocean ecosystem and could improve the absorption of carbon dioxide, blamed for global warming.
Iron is a limited micronutrient in the Southern Ocean, but recent experiments have found that adding soluble iron to surface waters helps promote much-needed phytoplankton algal blooms.
Iron is contained in algae in the surface waters where plants grow, but there is a constant rain of iron-rich particles falling into deep waters.
When krill eat the algae, and whales eat the krill, the iron ends up in whale poo, and the iron levels are kept up in surface waters where it is most needed.
"We reckon whale poo is probably 10 million times more concentrated with iron than sea water," Nicol said.
"The system operates at a high level when you have this interaction between the krill, the whales and the algae and they maintain the system at a very high level of production. So it's a self sustaining system."
Nicol said the idea to research whale droppings came from a casual pub chat among Antarctic scientists in Australia's island state of Tasmania.
He said it was not yet known how much poo it would take have a significant impact on the Southern Ocean.
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Alex Ellul
Apr 23rd 2010, 15:15
This expensive fairy tale, expensive, becuase the "scientist" who carried out this 'research" was paid asome good dosh, is another false pearl in a string of climate change lies. The climate change peddlers have been causght with their pants down on many hyped-up, false, reprots on temperature, glaciers, riising ocean levels and the sinking ship is being propped up with more lies and fairy tales like this one. When lies are propped up with more lies its the end of the story.
Geoffrey Mifsud Farrugia
Apr 23rd 2010, 11:34
He said it was not yet known how much poo it would take have a significant impact on the Southern Ocean...
certainly more than a shitload and you dont need to be a rocket scientist!
J Fenech
Apr 23rd 2010, 10:47
http://www.aad.gov.au/default.asp?casid=37724 ... perhaps this is of some help!
r ferriggi
Apr 23rd 2010, 10:44
this is one hell of a good joke
Michael Parks
Apr 23rd 2010, 10:41
This is an interesting story although I'm not sure I follow the complete food chain path and the absorption/adsorption of CO2 process.
It is often said that Methane, CH4, is the poor problematic 'Greenhouse Gas' and the gas produced by rotting vegetation and the gas burped up by cows, etc are the main producers.
There was a research programme in Australia I think, into the digestive system of the kangaroo which did not produce any or very little CH4 in the kangaroo burp. The research was looking into the effect of liquorice and similar additives, with a view to adding these additives to cattle diets to cut down the CH4 emissions.
Fascinating area and it often seems that nature has the answers but we can't always see it.
Alex Ellul
Apr 23rd 2010, 10:55
Mr. Parks, when you read reports like these always ask yourself: How much grant money has this or that scientist got from our taxes? Follow the money trail and you wil get there. Science has become a slave of politicians, with the latter dangling the financial carrot in front of those scientists who are ready to sell their scientific soul for grant money. There are many, thousands of PhD's who have a different story to tell but they don't get neither the grants, since their science goes against the politicians' plans, nor the publicity because the mainstream media also needs to publish fairy tales for their media to sell more.
All this is costing us trillions of dosh on a global scale, but most of the dosh is coming out mainly from western countries, that is, our pockets. We are financing a big lie.
Anthony White
Apr 23rd 2010, 11:33
Thank goodness, Cows don't have access to matches and lighters, keep this from terrorists or they might hold lighters to both ends of cows to create more explosions.
Ha, Ha
Alex Ellul
Apr 23rd 2010, 10:24
Are our governments spending millions of dollars/euros/Stg on such stupidities? Don't these scientists know the ratio between the volume of whale poo and the ocean waters? Its about one billionth of an insigificant fraction. Who do they think theyr'e kidding? The report ends with: "He said it was not yet known how much poo it would take have a significant impact on the Southern Ocean" so what's the point in reporting all this? If politicians can accept spending our taxes on fairy tales then I shudder to think what future our frail economies have.
CO2 increase in ocean waters is another fairy tale concocted by the gravy-guzzling pseudo-scientists riding on the global warming gravy train, peddling carbon credits and making energy more expensive when we need it more at cheaper rates so as to survive the chain of recessions hitting this planet.
Yesterday was Earth day, the pagan feast of the global leftist movement that hijacked environmentalism. In fact Earth day falls on the 22nd of April, which is Vladimir Lenin's birthday and the first earth day was established on his 100 anniversary by a group of US communists. A good read is found here;
http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/04/earth_day_an_assault_on_man.html