Evaluations of Fertilization of the Oceans as a Countermeasure of CO2 Problem.

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  • 酸化炭素問題対策技術としての海洋施肥法の評価
  • 2サンカ タンソ モンダイ タイサク ギジュツ トシテノ カイヨウ セヒホウ

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Fertilization technique is one of the countermeasures using the ocean, that can be used against the global warming. Fertilazation of the oceans with nutrients, such as nitrogen and phosphate, can promote the propagation of plant biota, leading to a decrease in the surface-ocean partial pressure of CO2, drawing down CO2 from the atmosphere.<BR>In the present study, we evaluate the validity of this countermeasure from the view-points of mass balance, energy balance and dynamics. First, we determined the desired amount of nutrients based on the PNC ratio in the plant biota in the ocean, and assumed several ways of fertilization. Second, we evaluated its response by a numerical box model taking the unsteady-state recirculation of the inorganic/organic carbon and nutrients, and carbon fixation by plant biota into account. The results indicated that this technique possibly can have the expected effect on the restraint of increse in atmospheric CO2 within a few years, while its effect on the oceanic organic carbon in the surface is only doubling the present thin concenration for a hundred years' fertilization. The energy evaluation also indicated that the amount of CO2 produced from the manufacture and transportation of both N and P fertilizers is no more than 9% of the amount that is expected to be taken up into the ocean from the atmosphere.

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