Hungry shrimp eat climate change experiment

[Telarus]

Hungry shrimp eat climate change experiment

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16842-hungry-shrimp-eat-climate-change-experiment.html

It is another nail in the coffin of using ocean fertilisation to cool the planet. Early results from the latest field experiment suggest the technique will fail.

"I think we are seeing the last gasps of ocean iron fertilisation as a carbon storage strategy," says Ken Caldeira of the Carnegie Institution at Stanford University.

Earlier this month, the controversial Indian-German Lohafex expedition fertilised 300 square kilometres of the Southern Atlantic with six tonnes of dissolved iron. The iron triggered a bloom of phytoplankton, which doubled their biomass within two weeks by taking in carbon dioxide from the seawater. Dead bloom particles were then expected to sink to the ocean bed, dragging carbon along with them.

Instead, the bloom attracted a swarm of hungry copepods. The tiny crustaceans graze on phytoplankton, which keeps the carbon in the food chain and prevents it from being stored in the ocean sink. Researchers from the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research reported that the copepods were in turn eaten by larger crustaceans called amphipods, which serve as food for squid and fin whales.

MORE

[Jasper]

Damn, I always thought that idea might have gone somewhere.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Hungry shrimp eat climate change experiment

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16842-hungry-shrimp-eat-climate-change-experiment.html

It is another nail in the coffin of using ocean fertilisation to cool the planet. Early results from the latest field experiment suggest the technique will fail.

"I think we are seeing the last gasps of ocean iron fertilisation as a carbon storage strategy," says Ken Caldeira of the Carnegie Institution at Stanford University.

Earlier this month, the controversial Indian-German Lohafex expedition fertilised 300 square kilometres of the Southern Atlantic with six tonnes of dissolved iron. The iron triggered a bloom of phytoplankton, which doubled their biomass within two weeks by taking in carbon dioxide from the seawater. Dead bloom particles were then expected to sink to the ocean bed, dragging carbon along with them.

Instead, the bloom attracted a swarm of hungry copepods. The tiny crustaceans graze on phytoplankton, which keeps the carbon in the food chain and prevents it from being stored in the ocean sink. Researchers from the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research reported that the copepods were in turn eaten by larger crustaceans called amphipods, which serve as food for squid and fin whales.

MORE

There is nothing about this that is not funny.

[LMNO]

I really hope that at some point when they were planning all this out, one scientist turned to the other and said, "what could possibly go wrong?"

[Elder Iptuous]

is there no environment that phytoplankton can survive, but not the copepods?

OT this is the second thread this week that makes me want to get back into reef aquarium keeping.  i never had enough copepods in my tank to support a mandarin...

[Kai]

What this shows is that even an experiment that failed in one sense can have interesting and useful results.

[Iason Ouabache]

What this shows is that even an experiment that failed in one sense can have interesting and useful results.

Nuh uh, Kai. This proves that all scientist are teh dumb and don't know anything ever. This also proves that my specific god exists. Take that, scientatheists!
     \

[Kai]

 

[Vene]

It's only funny until you have somebody actually tell you that.  Then it's

[Kai]

It's only funny until you have somebody actually tell you that.  Then it's

has both  and  , therefore it was 

[Vene]

Damn scienticians and their logic.

[Iason Ouabache]

It's only funny until you have somebody actually tell you that.  Then it's

I'm still convinced that 75% of online Creationists are actually trolls. There is no way that anyone could be that stupid and still figure out how to use a computer.

[Elder Iptuous]

What this shows is that even an experiment that failed in one sense can have interesting and useful results.

Applied Science rendered Pure through the refining fire of failure!

[Telarus]

I blame this schmuck:

[Kai]

What this shows is that even an experiment that failed in one sense can have interesting and useful results.

Applied Science rendered Pure through the refining fire of failure!

My point exactly.

Question: Why is it that we have to separate both pure and applied science? Why is it that applied science doesn't lead to pure science more often? Why is it that one or the other is looked down upon? Is it because people in "pure science" are seen as sitting in ivory towers, and that people in "applied science" are seen as amoral greedy businessmen?

From what I see, the one should lead to the other, and vice versa, and back and forth. Questions and systems both drive just as strongly, why not creative and applied inquiry?