Geoengineering impact of open ocean dissolution of olivine on atmospheric CO2, surface ocean pH and marine biology
By Peter Köhler, J. Abrams, Christoph Völker, J. Hauck, Dieter A. Wolf-Gladrow. 2013
161 citations recorded by the source corpus.
Ongoing global warming induced by anthropogenic emissions has opened the debate as to whether geoengineering is a ‘quick fix’ option. Here we analyse the intended and unintended effects of one specific geoengineering approach, which is enhanced weathering via the open ocean dissolution of the silicate-containing mineral olivine. This approach would not only reduce atmospheric CO2 and oppose surface ocean acidification, but would also impact on marine biology. If dissolved in the surface ocean, olivine sequesters 0.28 g carbon per g of olivine dissolved, similar to land-based enhanced weathering. Silicic acid input, a byproduct of the olivine dissolution, alters marine biology because silicate is in certain areas the limiting nutrient for diatoms. As a consequence, our model predicts a shift in phytoplankton species composition towards diatoms, altering the biological carbon pumps. Enhanced olivine dissolution, both on land and in the ocean, therefore needs to be considered as ocean fertilization. From dissolution kinetics we calculate that only olivine particles with a grain size of the order of 1 μm sink slowly enough to enable a nearly complete dissolution. The energy consumption for grinding to this small size might reduce the carbon sequestration efficiency by ∼30%.
Subfields: Global and Planetary Change, Oceanography
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/b08495921b657ba5263bf58bacd55fe7896efcfb
How researchers see this paper
The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.
In Global and Planetary Change
In Oceanography
Citations in the corpus
- Olivine dissolution rates: A critical review (2018, background): “The reactivity of forsteritic olivine(1) and its aqueous alteration products has received increasing attention as a potential source material for the divalent cations required to carbonate CO2 during carbon storage efforts (e.g. Giammar et al., 2005; Oelkers and Schott, 2005; Bearat et al., 2006; Ma”
- Negative emissions—Part 2: Costs, potentials and side effects (2018, methodology): “…et al 2009, House et al 2007), as well as regional to global scale model assessments (Hangx and Spiers 2009, Hauck et al 2016, House et al 2007, Köhler et al 2010, Taylor et al 2016, Köhler et al 2013, Strefler et al 2018a) and plot-scale experiments (Montserrat et al 2017, ten Berge et al 2012).”