In this day and age where, to term it lightly, everything is going to hell in a handbasket, it is a blessing to see some countries taking active steps to avert the "nastiness" in store for us. Sadly though, we simply do not see enough of these steps, especially in relation to what needs to happen.

That aside, India is looking towards the future, and with a population estimated to sit at 1.12 billion people, and rising pollution levels, India is a country that needs to look to said future.

India is planning to ‘fertilize’ – or seed – an area of the South Atlantic, off the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula, with 20 tonnes of non-toxic iron sulphate. At first, one worries about pollution, but you have to read on to see the brilliance of this. First of all, the ’seed’ material is non-toxic, and therefore will not harm the ocean in any way. Secondly, the ’seeding’ is intended – and proven – to raise the levels of phytoplankton – a tiny floating surface algae – that is responsible for 50% of the Earth’s photosynthesis, and thus, removal of 50% of the worlds carbon.

California based Planktos Inc., among others, have already tried this method, and found that it is indeed a viable method to help the environment. In fact, back in the early 1990’s, a region of the Pacific Ocean was ’seeded’ with iron dust and saw a 20-fold increase in the local phytoplankton population, with a corresponding decline in atmospheric carbon dioxide by roughly 2,500 tons within a period of 2 weeks.

Since that time, the level of phytoplankton globally has dropped by 25%, and a renewal of said algae is hoped to restore a certain balance.

"India will be particularly hard-hit by global warming, so it needs to adopt mitigation measures more urgently," Victor Smetacek, NRI scientist and bio-oceanography professor at the University of Bremen, Germany, told the Hindustan Times.

Smetacek, along with researchers from the National Institute of Oceanography (NIO) Goa, and scientists from Germany, Italy and Chile, will conduct the experiment during January to March of 2009, during the southern hemisphere’s warmer months.

With continued global warming, related effects have been noted in the ocean’s ability to absorb carbon. Reports have flooded in over the past several years explaining just what has gone wrong. The journal Science recently published data showing that the Southern Ocean’s ability to absorb carbon from the atmosphere had been reduced by 15% every decade since 1981.

Another report suggests that, since the 1980s, the ocean’s ability to metabolize carbon dioxide – which sat at 50 gigatons a year – has dropped 3 gigatons, due to the loss of phytoplankton. This corresponds to approximately half of all industrial and automotive emissions each year.

The possible resulting feedback loop worries scientists and conservationists worldwide. The increasing carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere caused by humans are stopping the oceans from metabolizing the carbon dioxide which, in turn, causes a further rise in carbon levels worldwide.

Sadly, only time will really let us know just how much damage has been done, and until then, all we can do is keep our fingers crossed and stop driving our car to work (at least, that’s my theory!).

Google Map of Scotia Sea

TreeHugger - International Team Of Scientists To Test South Atlantic Carbon Sink In 2009

Hindustan Times - India looks to the sea to cool planet

The Green Geek - Seeding the ocean to promote climate change

CSIRO - Southern ocean carbon sink weakened

Image Courtesy of Green Geek - Algae Bloom