The Big Problem

I haven't really written very many serious posts about the material being researched down here. That's not because it's not interesting; I spend much of my day helping monitor the CTD casts and roaming around seeing if any scientists or technicians need any help. It's all really neat stuff… I’ve just been lazy. But I also think that basic scientific processes are misunderstood by the general population, through the fault of myriad 6th grade basketball coach/science teachers. It's not a crazy, complicated thing that's going on out here; it may a complicated problem they're working on, but each small piece of the puzzle can be easily understood by anyone.

So what exactly is the problem? Many people ask themselves: If global warming is so bad, why does everyone draw the sun with a smiley face? Will our kids and their kids draw the sun with a frowny face? I guess the sun in Super Mario World would sometimes dive-bomb you, but that was only if you weren't careful.

Well, the real problem is that the whole global warming thing is complicated. We all know that global warming is occurring; that is a measurable fact. We also know that global warming is accelerated by anthropogenic processes (man-made influence). This is also measurable. There is a team of three scientists on board the Revelle who are dedicated to calculating the level of freons (CFCs) in the water. CFCs are an industrial by-product that simply is not found in deeper water (older water). So oceanographers can easily identify which water is older than the industrial era, and can calculate carbon levels and things like that. Long story short is that man is, quite obviously, putting enormous amounts of carbon into the air.

So what do we do about it? It seems that there is sometimes an attitude of “let’s just sit back and let the scientists figure out a cure.” Basically, people expect a simple solution to a complex problem. Recently, for example, there has been a lot of buzz about some research into the effects of dumping iron into the ocean. Iron is one of the limiting factors in phytoplankton digestion of CO2 into O2. Dumping loads of iron into iron-deficient water has proven to lower CO2 levels… a ‘quick fix.’ While politicians have been elated to hear about this, much of the scientific community remains skeptical: the boat that took the iron dumping experiment to sea put out as much CO2 as was removed. And what will be the long-term effects of dumping iron? And where will we even get enough iron to make a difference, especially if CO2 emissions continue to rise?

While it’s probable that there is no single, simple answer to global warming, there is still a whole lot of room to learn more about the problem. Nobody would have ever known about the phytoplankton depending on iron if research hadn’t gone into trace metals. So what’s happening on the Revelle is a series of repeated measurements of trace metals, dissolved organic and inorganic carbon, nutrients, salts, temperature, depth, alkalinity, chlorophyll, dissolved organic matter, and a few others. Nobody expects a breakthrough, just a slight clarification of the existing ocean/climate model. Small steps.

In future posts, I’ll elaborate a bit more on each of the separate processes being measured. Trust me, it’s interesting!