Today, a new research group has been announced that will focus on furthering our understanding of the efficacy and impacts of ocean iron fertilization (OIF).

An initial group of twelve universities and research centers from around the world have come together to found the ISIS (in situ iron studies) Consortium.  Its mission is to explore the potential impact of iron fertilization of the oceans for reducing the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the Earth’s atmosphere and to understand the environmental impacts of the technique.   The caliber and diversity of scientists and institutions involved represents a substantial leap in breadth and capability of research on this topic. The consortium website, available at http://isisconsortium.org/, describes the planned activities and members of ISIS. 

I have been an early team member involved in the concept and implementation of the consortium and am pleased to announce that I will shift my efforts to bring forward a next generation of OIF experiments completely under this new group.  I will do so as a private citizen with no expected commercial benefit.

I believe that the signs global change may be accelerating (record yearly average temperatures, melting of icecaps and glaciers, insufficient winter die-off of pests like the pine bark beetle, ocean acidification, extreme flooding and wildfires, etc) provide a strong rationale to scale up our efforts to explore the potential benefits and repercussions of Ocean Iron Fertilization (OIF) as well as other carbon and solar-based climate engineering techniques.    Given the failure of governments to maintain economic signals that can support market-based solutions, non-commercial efforts like the ISIS Consortium may be our only chance to deliver the answers we need. It is my hope that it serves as a model for others pursuing technologies like this to emulate.

Clearly no single climate engineering approach known today could address all the impacts of climate change—just as no single effort to mitigate carbon emissions can have a majority role by itself.  If ever deployed, climate engineering techniques must be part of a comprehensive and aggressive global effort to limit and eventually eliminate carbon emissions.

I am proud of the role that the team at Climos and our various advisors and colleagues played in advancing the dialogue around OIF, and in particular helping to design a global regulatory framework under the London Convention and Protocol.  I am excited that we may now be entering the important next phase of this research.  Over the next five to ten years we may finally see mature scale studies that give governments the insights they need to make informed decisions.  It is my honor to be able to serve this new larger effort.

As of this date, Climos has ceased regular business activities. Our website will remain active as a record of our activities and the materials we produced.

I would like to personally thank the extraordinary number of people who came together over the last five years in support of us and our mission, and who understood the importance of the fundamental objective we had. 

Particular recognition is owed our Science Advisory Board, including Rita Colwell, Jody Deming, Bob Gagosian, Tom Lovejoy, Deirdre Meldrum and Ed Miles, who courageously supported our goal of bringing this research forward and whose resolve is now vindicated by this new group.

Most of all, I’d like to thank my colleagues, Dick Whilden, Margaret Leinen, Bill Kohrs, Kevin Whilden, Aileen Corpuz, Sharon Manuel and Ben Grant, who together made it all possible. 

Onwards!

Sincerely,

Dan Whaley

CEO, Climos

KALW Crosscurrents is doing an interview of me talking about OIF, geoengineering and the recent Asilomar conference for Earth Day.  Kudos to them for being willing to take on a complex issue, particularly on a sacred day for environmentalists.  Could we be getting closer to the day that those thinking about climate intervention are actually recognized to be deep environmental thinkers as well.  In fact, dare I say, just as concerned (if not more in some cases) about the state of our environment as our peers. 

The show airs on KALW 91.7FM in San Francisco at 5pm Thursday April 22, and can be accessed afterwards as a podcast here.

An article looks at the positive benefits of ash to the nutrient cycle in the ocean... There are a few good papers on this, including Frogner, et al 2001 in Geology.

"By now, you may know that airborne ash from the volcano that erupted through Iceland's Eyjafjallajökull glacier this past Wednesday is like floating Kryptonite for airplanes. The ash clogs engines and threatens aeronautic safety. And in the right concentrations, it can be bad for both people and animals when it lands.

The falling cinders—a mix of crushed rock, glass and some toxic chemicals—are considered generally bad for the body. So what happens when this particulate cloud of doom settles on the surface of the ocean? You might picture it creating a floating blanket of poison that would give the people at Ocean Conservancy cardiacs. But does it?

A plume of volcanic ash rises into the atmosphere from a crater under about 656 feet ice at the Eyjafjallajokull glacier in southern Iceland April 14, 2010. A huge ash cloud from the Icelandic volcano turned the skies of northern Europe into a no-fly zone on Thursday, stranding hundreds of thousands of passengers. Photo: Olafur Eggertsson/Reuters

Well, according to several scientific studies, the ash could actually be good for oceans.

The UK Parliament Science and Technology Committee has recommended that the UN be urged to take up the regulation of solar radiation management.

Climate manipulation must be regulated at the UN level to avoid countries taking matters into their own hands, says a committee of MPs

International rules are necessary to prevent individual countries taking unilateral action to control the earth’s climate say MPs. 

The report by the Science and Technology Committee said small-scale geoengineering testing was already underway and could be necessary if the ‘Plan A’ of emissions reduction fails.

‘Geoengineering could affect the entire planet and it would be foolish to ignore its potential to minimise or reverse human caused climate change,’ said Committee Chairman Phil Willis MP.

Some french students sent an inquiry about OIF... here are my responses:

On Tue, Mar 16, 2010 at 3:13 AM, Justine KLINGELSCHMIDT <justine.klingelschmidt@XXXX.org> wrote:

Thanks a lot for your answer, Mr Whaley. We are conscious that you are a key actor on this issue and we really appreciate to have your point of view . I send you the list of question.


1) First of all, could you tell us more about your professional background?
about your research concerning the oceans?

2) Given the results of all the scientific experiments (LOHAFEX,...), are you
still considering ocean fertilization as an effective way to fight global
warming?

3) The LOHAFEX expperiment has been charged by some environmental groups with
being a "dangerous geo-engineering project that violated the UN restrictions".
Why do you think this experiment raised such a controversy?

4) What about the institutional framework (UN Conventions: London Convention,
Convention on Biological Diversity...)? Is it clear enough or should it be
precised?

5) Is it difficult for the States to come to an agreement about ocean
fertilization?

6) Since you know well CLIMOS, one question about it: some say that
geo-ingineering companies like CLIMOS are violating the precautionary
principle, and do not pay enough attention to the potential side-effects on long term. What can you argue against that?

The Asilomar International Conference on Climate Intervention begins next week.  Eli Kintisch blogs at Discover Magazine about the various perspectives inside and outside of the NGO community.

A PNAS paper released today which looks at domoic acid (DA) production in past OIF experiments has concluded that DA was increased in some of the projects.  Though the conclusions from the paper itself were relatively conservative:

"Although there remain uncertainties in extrapolating our results to large oceanic scales, the findings establish potential consequences for developing toxic phytoplankton blooms in pelagic ecosystems,
which so far have not been adequately investigated."

Headlines have ranged from the dramatic "Ocean Geoengineering Scheme May Prove Lethal", and at the NY Times, the oddly phrased, "A Risk of Poisoning the Deepest Wells" to the more subdued, "Carbon-capture scheme could cause toxic blooms".

All fail to explore the obvious flaw in this sort of analysis.  Namely, that phytoplankton underpin open ocean productivity, that this productivity relies on iron, and that when iron-fed naturally occurring blooms happen, they likely favor--in certain regions--Pseudonitzschia or other DA producers.  In short, we know that the availability of iron drives much of the oceanic carbon cycle.  If DA is produced by artificially stimulated OIF blooms, it is likely produced during natural ones as well.

Carbon must be sucked from air, says IPCC chief Rajendra Pachauri

Pardon me, but can I just say that this took an awfully long time.
Should have been doing this months ago, and in a much more public
way.   Select committee on science and technology is too limited of a
forum for this.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

HEARING 12/2: State of Climate Science

UPDATED MEDIA ADVISORY FOR 10 AM, WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 2, 2009

Contact: Select Committee, 202-225-4012
Select Committee Hearing: State of Climate Science
Drs. Holdren, Lubchenco to Show Urgency of Impacts, Risk

**This hearing will be WEBCAST LIVE.

WASHINGTON – With the international climate change talks in Copenhagen
fast approaching, there is real urgency to reach diplomatic consensus
on a planetary solution. In a hearing this Wednesday, the Select
Committee will explore with climate scientists from the Obama
administration the urgent, consensus view on our planetary problem:
that global warming is real, and the science indicates that it is
getting worse.

At the hearing, Chairman Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) will host two of
America’s preeminent climate scientists, Dr. John Holdren and Dr. Jane
Lubchenco.

Dr. Holdren is the Director of the Office of Science and Technology
Policy, and was formerly a professor at Harvard University and the
director of the acclaimed Woods Hole Research Center.

Dr. Lubchenco is the Administrator of the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the United States’ leading climate
office.

The past decade has been the hottest in recorded history, with all of
the years since 2001 being in the top 10 of hottest, according to
NASA. This summer, the world’s oceans were the warmest in NOAA’s 130
years of record-keeping. Meanwhile, global heat-trapping pollution
continues to rise.

WHAT: Select Committee hearing on the State of Climate Science

WHEN: 10 AM, Wednesday, December 2nd, 2009

WHERE: B-318 Rayburn House Office Building, Washington, DC
and on the web at globalwarming.house.gov

Interesting UK Guardian piece today:

"Climate change sceptics and fossil fuel companies that have lobbied
against action on greenhouse gas emissions have squandered the world's
chance to avoid dangerous global warming, a key adviser to the
government has said.

"Professor Bob Watson, chief scientist at the Department for
Environment and Rural Affairs, said a decade of inaction on climate
change meant it was now virtually impossible to limit global
temperature rise to 2C. He said the delay meant the world would now do
well to stabilise warming between 3C and 4C.

Watson backed controversial calls for research into geoengineering
techniques, such as blocking the sun, as a way to head off dangerous
temperature rise – one of the most senior figures so far to do so. "We
should at least be looking at it. I would see what the theoretical
models say, and ask ourselves the question: how can we do medium-sized
experiments in the field?"

An announcement today without much substance yet, from Phil Willis MP in charge of the UK House of Commons Science and Technology committee:

Commons Committee to work in unique collaboration with US Congressional Committee

The Science and Technology Committee has today announced a new inquiry into the regulation of geoengineering. The House of Commons inquiry is being coordinated with an inquiry into geoengineering which the US Congressional Science and Technology Committee starts today.

The Commons inquiry follows on from the major inquiry that the Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee completed in March 2008, Engineering: turning ideas into reality, which took ‘geoengineering’ as a case study. The Report examined activities specifically and deliberately designed to effect a change in the global climate with the aim of minimising or reversing man-made climate change.

Building on the earlier work the new inquiry will focus on one aspect of geoengineering: the regulation of geoengineering, particularly international regulation and regulation within the UK. The following terms of reference will be used for the Commons inquiry.

• Is there a need for international regulation of geoengineering and geoengineering research and if so, what international regulatory mechanisms need to be developed?
• How should international regulations be developed collaboratively?
• What UK regulatory mechanisms apply to geoengineering and geoengineering research and what changes will need to be made for purpose of regulating geoengineering?

Six articles this month in an Environmental Research Letters focus issue on geoengineering.  Thoughtful pieces on a range of issues, particularly including questions of risk and ethics and the idea of ecological analogues of geoengineering.

Modification of cirrus clouds to reduce global warming
David L Mitchell and William Finnegan

Climate engineering and the risk of rapid climate change
Andrew Ross and H Damon Matthews

Researching geoengineering: should not or could not?
Martin Bunzl

Of mongooses and mitigation: ecological analogues to geoengineering
H Damon Matthews and Sarah E Turner

Toward ethical norms and institutions for climate engineering research
David R Morrow, Robert E Kopp and Michael Oppenheimer

On the possible use of geoengineering to moderate specific climate change impacts
Michael C MacCracken

Jamais Cascio asks the obvious in this fastcompany piece about the climate change activist group 350.org.  If we're already at 387, then how are we going to get back to 350?  It not only requires cutting emissions to zero, but removing CO2 from the atmosphere as well.  And there is scant discussion of how they would expect to do so... reforestation, biochar?  As Jamais points out, these are slow to act. 

"But getting back to 350ppm requires more than a rapid cessation of anthropogenic sources of atmospheric carbon. It requires an acceleration of the processes that cycle atmospheric CO₂. Planting trees is an obvious step, but it's slow and actually doesn't do enough alone. We'll also need to bring in more advanced carbon sequestration techniques, such as bio-char. The combination of the two would likely bring down atmospheric carbon levels, given enough time.

Unfortunately, we may not have enough time."

The point of the 350 framing is that we're already past what could be construed as a "safe" level.  In other words, it highlights the danger of potential tipping points and how we really have no idea how far ahead they lie.

UNEP today announces a report which highlights the importance of the ocean in the role of carbon sequestration, and also of the role that markets can perform.

"The Blue Carbon report, compiled in collaboration with the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), puts some hard figures on the carbon capturing potential of the marine environment and on the impact of marine degradation on climate change.

It also outlines the way markets might begin paying developing countries for conserving and enhancing the marine environment's carbon capture and storage services (CCS) and the links between healthy oceans and adaptation to climate change.

Currently, several developed countries are considering spending billions of dollar on CCS at power stations while the CCS services of natural systems, such as the seas and oceans, are tested and probably more cost effective."

NY Times Op-Ed "Are We Too Late?"

H.D.S. Greenway begins to talk about the elephant in the room, and asks what has really been forbidden territory in the climate discussion for most of the mainstream policymakers--up until now guided by 2 degrees C threshold thinking.  i.e. "What if the trend is irreversible?"  "What if it cannot be prevented?"

The effects of humanity’s industry, piggy-backing on a normal warming trend that has been going on since the 19th century, is causing temperatures to climb at an unprecedented rate. On that most of science agrees. But what if the centuries-long build–up of gasses and nature itself have conspired to make this trend irreversible?

This is not an argument against a strong effort on the part of mankind to at least slow down the warming. The United States and the world can and should make a big effort to stop making the problem worse.

But the world is not united. The developing countries feel it is unfair to demand caps just as they are industrializing, and we are moving into a post-industrial economy. It is simply not possible to shut down enough of the world’s smoke stacks, and a lot of cap and trade begins to sound like a shell game.

So when the world meets in Copenhagen to discuss climate change come December, I hope there will be more thought on what has to be done if climate change cannot be prevented.

The UK Guardian reports today on record CO2 numbers from a key arctic station.

"The concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has reached a record high, according to the latest figures released by an internationally regarded measuring station in the Arctic.

The measurements suggest that the main greenhouse gas is continuing to increase in the atmosphere at an alarming rate despite the downturn in dip in the rate of increase of the global economy.

Levels of the gas at the Zeppelin research station on Svalbard, northern Norway, last week peaked at over 397 parts per million (ppm), an increase of more than 2.5ppm on 2008. They have since begun to reduce and today stand at 393.7ppm. Prior to the industrial revolution, CO₂ levels were around 280ppm."

Nature calls for serious consideration of geoengineering in their lead-off editorial this last week.

"The latest scientific research suggests that even a complete halt to carbon pollution would not bring the world’s temperatures down substantially for several centuries.  If further research reveals that a prolonged period of elevated temperatures would endanger the polar ice sheets, or otherwise destabilize the Earth system, nations may have to contemplate actively removing CO2 from the atmosphere. Indeed, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is already developing scenarios for the idea that long-term safety may require sucking up carbon, and various innovators and entrepreneurs are developing technologies that might be able to accomplish that feat (see page 1094). At the moment, those technologies seem ruinously expensive and technically difficult. But if the very steep learning curve can be climbed, then the benefits will be great.

More radical still is the possibility of cooling the planet through some kind of ‘geoengineering’ that would dim the incoming sunlight (see page 1097). The effects of such approaches are much more worrying than those of capturing carbon from the air, however. The cooling from geoengineering would not exactly balance the warming from greenhouse gases, which would cause complications even if the technology itself was feasible — something for which the evidence has been circumstantial, at best.

But discussions about the possibilities offered by geoengineering could also lull the world’s leaders into complacency — if they lead them to believe that the technology will provide an escape hatch if the climate ever does reach a tipping point. This does not mean that the discussions should be avoided, but rather that the speculations need to be backed up with a solid body of research. Moreover, geoengineering research should be framed not as a hope for deus ex machina fixes to sudden global deterioration, but as a palliative cushion for the worst excesses of the peak years that are inevitable even after emissions start to be cut. A world slightly shaded from the Sun while its carbon levels are brought down by means of active capture would be a strangely unnatural place — but not necessarily a bad one, compared with the alternatives."

The AMS Draft Statement on Geoengineering the Climate System is available via the AMS home page now...

If you have comment on this draft AMS Statement currently under
consideration, you may transmit those comments to the AMS Council by
sending a message to the following e-mail address by April 23 2009:
statement_comments@ametsoc.org

AMS Policy Statement on Geoengineering the Climate System
Draft 7 March 2009

Human activities have very likely caused most of the well-documented
change in global climate over the last half century. Unchecked future
greenhouse gas emissions, particularly of carbon dioxide from the
burning of fossil fuels, will almost certainly lead to additional
climate impacts such as further global warming, continued sea level
rise, greater rainfall intensity, more serious and pervasive droughts,
enhanced heat stress episodes, ocean acidification, and the disruption
of many biological systems. The resulting inundation of coastal areas,
severe weather impacts, and loss of ecosystem services will likely
cause major negative impacts for most nations.

Geoengineering could conceivably offer targeted and fast-acting
options to reduce acute climate impacts and provide strategies of last
resort if abrupt, catastrophic, or otherwise unacceptable climate
change impacts become unavoidable by other means. However,
geoengineering must be viewed with great caution because manipulating
the Earth system is almost certain to trigger some adverse and
unpredictable consequences.