Antarctic Krill - Future Visions and Ocean Engineering

Future Visions and Ocean Engineering

Despite the lack of knowledge available about the whole Antarctic ecosystem, large scale experiments involving krill are already being performed to increase carbon sequestration: in vast areas of the Southern Ocean there are plenty of nutrients, but still, the phytoplankton does not grow much. These areas are termed HNLC (high nutrient, low chlorophyll). The phenomenon is called the Antarctic Paradox, and occurs because iron is missing. Relatively small injections of iron from research vessels trigger very large blooms, covering many miles. The hope is that such large scale exercises will draw down carbon dioxide as compensation for the burning of fossil fuels.

Read more about this topic:  Antarctic Krill

Famous quotes containing the words future, visions, ocean and/or engineering:

    The person who does not worry about the future will shortly have worries about the present.
    —Chinese proverb.

    Confucian Analects.

    Three things there be in man’s opinion dear,
    Fame, many friends, and fortune’s dignities:
    False visions all, which in our sense appear,
    To sanctify desire’s idolatry.
    Fulke Greville (1554–1628)

    To the Ocean now I fly,
    And those happy climes that ly
    Where day never shuts his eye,
    Up in the broad fields of the sky:
    John Milton (1608–1674)

    Mining today is an affair of mathematics, of finance, of the latest in engineering skill. Cautious men behind polished desks in San Francisco figure out in advance the amount of metal to a cubic yard, the number of yards washed a day, the cost of each operation. They have no need of grubstakes.
    Merle Colby, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)