We all know how badly climate change is affecting our planet and is putting our lives at risk. Global warming, one of the major causes of climate change, has been rendering detrimental impacts on the levels of water as glaciers are melting rapidly. This could result in an erroneous increase in the water levels throughout the cities, and the temperature is also rising more than expected. On the other hand, scientists are continuously making efforts to bring out such solutions that could mitigate the impacts of climate change and to prevent the matter from becoming grave.
In one such attempt, scientists have discovered a decades-old idea from mother nature that seems to have a potential to mitigate the effects of global warming. They revealed that the planet’s oceans could be planted with “phytoplankton,” which can easily ditch global warming. Phytoplankton is an organism that is associated with the generation of 50% of oxygen by inhaling carbon dioxide and sunlight from the atmosphere. The reduction in carbon dioxide would ultimately result in improving the climatic conditions, thereby decreasing the phenomenon of global warming.
The idea is incredibly seamless, but the question arises of how we could attain phytoplankton in a sufficient amount to bring about a considerable change in the atmosphere. The answer is iron. Yes! Iron is a notably famous source of attaining phytoplankton which can make it bloom. And we all know that it is not difficult for us to produce iron. Also, according to scientists, iron should be sprinkled in sufficient amounts on the iron-deficient parts of the ocean so that all of the ocean can become covered by it.
In this way, carbon dioxide can easily be absorbed by these iron parts. The most interesting thing to note is that the technique is inexpensive and doesn’t involve any significant costs. Moreover, it should be noted that scientists have grasped this concept from the old times when they were just in the initial phases of understanding the concept of global warming and climate change. But with the passage of time, they got a hold on the understanding of the causes behind it and are now working to optimise the concept.
The oceanographer John Martin, back in the 1980s, wrote this in a paper dug up by the Beast, “Give me half a tanker of iron, and I’ll give you an ice age.” Moreover, Ken Buesseler, who is a marine radiochemist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, said, “We’ve got a big reservoir. It takes up a third of the greenhouse gases already. The question that people are now asking more is, “What can we do to enhance that?” He further said, “Let’s get out there. Let’s do experiments. “
Coupled with this, the impacts can be visible by the blooming of phytoplankton in the first 24 hours of sprinkling out the iron parts. However, no information has been available as of now about the entire cost of carrying out this project.