FrankenClimate The Perils of Engineering Our Way Out of Global Warming

1. FrankenClimateThe Perils of Engineering Our Way Out of Global Warming Gabriel Filippelli Professor of Earth Sciences, IUPUI Director, Center for Urban Health Supported by the Deep Earth Academy; www.deepearthacademy.org Using deep sea evidence to make inference about Earth’s past, present, and future

2. “The 21st century is going to be a wild ride in terms of natural resources. We need to rethink the ways we’re using and consuming resources…while dealing with climate change.” John Ochsendorf

3. Outline • Be afraid…be very afraid • Climate impacts, future • “It’s Alive!” • Geo-engineering to confront global warming • Premise behind Iron Fertilization • “Where’s the beef?” • Looking to the deep sea to see how nature worked in the past • Don’t worry, be happy • Simpler ways to confront/adapt to climate change

4. Jakobshavn Ice Stream in Greenland Be afraid…be very afraid Why worry about climate change? • Melting Ice…no Ice PACs Tibet

5. Why worry about climate change? • …Rising Sea Level

6. Why worry about climate change? • Extreme Weather • Ocean Acidification • Droughts/Floods • Coastal Security • Ecosystem disruption • Food security risks • Inter-nation strife Inconvenient for some people and countries, catastrophic for others

7. Why is climate change occurring? or, “Same as it ever was” • Greenhouse gases • Water vapor – passive, responds to temperature • Carbon dioxide, methane, CFCs – active, store reflected IR as heat in atmosphere • Sources – combustion of fossil fuels; deforestation and soil loss; rice cultivation and ruminants; synthetic chemicals My daughter’s first breath My first breath

8. Will it get worse? • Nature Geoscience, March 25, 2012

9. But I can’t do anything about it! Carbon dioxide experiment as cause and cure My great granddaughter is born? My daughter was born I was born

10. Cure? Iron Fertilization of the Ocean

11. Iron Fertilization experiments Problem—blooms don’t last long, dominated by one species, yield unexpectedly low carbon effect

12. Geo-engineering solution to an environmental problem The addition of iron, a potentially limiting nutrient for biological productivity in some parts of the ocean: 1. Is “natural” 2. Spurs plant growth 3. Increases carbon dioxide uptake from the atmosphere 4. Reduces the Greenhouse Effect So, no bad effects? Ecosystem disruption, anoxia (think Gulf Dead Zone)

13. FrankenClimate Summarized • Geo-engineering concepts to control heat balance

14. But who holds the switch? Who decides when it is cool enough? How is it sustained over centuries? Who pays?

15. It’s Alive! “It is essential that we have a back-up plan--if geoengineering is that plan, it had better be well researched, well ahead of time.”

16. How Does History Rate Us?

17. How Does History Rate Us?

18. How Does History Rate Us? They breed like, well…

19. And Now What? • Destroying warrens through ripping, blasting • Fumigating • Poisoning with sodium fluoroacetate • Ferrets • Spreading rabbit-borne diseases myxomatosis, calicivirus; but need to vaccinate bunnies you want—remember the Easter Bunny, please!

20. How Does History Rate Us?

21. How Does History Rate Us?

22. How Does History Rate Us? • DDT increased agricultural yields, decreased malaria • But what the chemists hadn’t thought about… • Extremely persistent in the environment • Accumulates in organisms • Scrambles reproductive cycles • DDT-tolerance quickly emerged

23. Unintended Consequences Law of unintended consequences an intervention in a complex system tends to create unanticipated and often undesirable outcomes One unintended consequence—fossil fuels cause global warming. Are we willing to add another…?

25. Wind-driven Iron Fertilization High dust during glacial times fertilized the ocean around Antarctica, making it much for productive thus pulling down atmos. CO2

26. Where is the dust coming from?

27. Paradigm—fertilization from above Modern values for Southern Ocean Dust 0.2 mmol m-2 yr-1 Upwelling 8 – 16 mmol m-2 yr-1 Assumption—little variation in upwelling flux, large variations in dust flux synchronous with pCO2 changes We can mimic natural dust addition by dumping iron on the surface, fueling the biological capture of CO2 Hmmm…… But, the biological action was in the ocean Can confirm hypothesis by looking at past ocean conditions

28. Step aside Oceanographers, time for the Paleoceanographers to handle this

29. How do we know about ocean history?

30. Platforms for ocean exploration

31. What do scientists do?

32. On-board Analyses

33. Drilling and coring

34. Eating, sleeping…

35. So What Did We Do?

36. So What Did We Do?

37. What were we looking at?

38. What did we find?

39. Much Higher Fe Sedimentation during glacial periods Region Glacial Interglacial Reference Southern Ocean 300 – 3000 100 – 200 Latimer and Filippelli (2001) Southern Ocean 850 – 1400 100 – 250 Kumar (1995) Southern Ocean 20 – 40 2 Duce and Tindale, (aolian) 1991; Petit et al., 1981 Equatorial Pacific 50 – 200 10 – 30 Murray et al., 1995 Much higher indeed than the dust values…iron fertilization fueled from below?

40. Upwelled Iron Model Shelf sedimentation dominates Little turbidite activity Relatively “clean” deep ocean Iron limitation Shelf sedimentation reduced Turbidites activated Relatively “dirty” deep ocean Higher dissolved Fe in deep and midwaters Iron fertilization of productivity in ‘HNLC’ regions Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe

41. Paradigm Lost? Dirty Glacial ocean from high sediment loads to the deep sea Some iron dissolved from those sediments, upwelled into surface ocean, in proper form to fuel biological activity Upwelled iron included the other essential nutrients for plant growth The reason why the Fe fertilization experiments did not yield satisfactory results in terms of CO2 =

42. “Give me a half a tanker of iron, and I’ll give you an Ice Age” • Not likely how this process acted in the past • Unclear whether the productivity response observed can be sustained due to rapid downwelling of iron • Implications of large-scale ecosystem modification not well understood Novel idea: If we want to bring down carbon levels in the atmosphere, why not invest in emitting less?

43. Summary • Be afraid…be very afraid • Climate impacts and causes clear, future is ours • “It’s Alive!” • Geo-engineering to confront global warming • Premise behind Iron Fertilization might be flawed • “Where’s the beef?” • The deep sea holds many examples of “natural” experiments that are informative for our future • Don’t worry, be happy • Simpler ways to confront/adapt to climate change

44. Questions?

45. Not if, but when and how much are now the cogent questions related to climate change • Fighting a warming world—based on the concept of modulating the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide • Carbon emission restrictions • Efficiency, alternative sources, carbon sequestration • Living in a warming world—based on the concept that even with controlled emissions, warming will occur • Consider coastal security • Consider agricultural security, water supply security