In 2007, geoscientists proposed that artificial upwelling of nutrient-rich ocean water could help sequester a fraction of excess atmospheric carbon dioxide. The installation of large vertical pipes in suitable ocean regions would bring deeper water to the surface, enhancing photosynthesis.
Andreas Oschlies of the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences in Kiel, Germany, and his colleagues have now used a three-dimensional carbon-climate model to simulate the effect this might have on carbon fluxes. They found that under the most optimistic assumptions, the technique could sequester 900 million tonnes of carbon per year — about 10% of current annual emissions.
However, if artificial upwelling was later stopped, the model predicts that CO2 concentrations and sea surface temperatures would rise to levels higher than those in a reference simulation in which artificial upwelling had never been undertaken.
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Geoengineering: Ocean beating. Nature 463, 713 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/463713d
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/463713d
