Dalhousie University receives $15 million to lead a global study of ocean carbon absorption
DARTMOUTH, NS — Dalhousie University has received nearly $15 million from the Carbon to Sea Initiative to lead a new project aimed at reducing greenhouse gases through ocean research.
The Ocean Alk-align research program will attract researchers from around the world to study the improvement of ocean alkalinity, a process likened to adding an antacid to the ocean.
The project, led by Dalhousie University oceanologist Katja Fennel, will try to counteract ocean acidification and make ocean waters more receptive to absorbing carbon.
“Currently, improving ocean alkalinity is not a mature technology and its environmental impacts have not yet been assessed in the field,” Fennel said. risks and potential benefits, and the monitoring and verification of CO2 uptake.”
Fenkel also noted that it is now widely accepted that global efforts to reduce carbon emissions are not enough to divert the planet from course to catastrophic climate change.
To meet the goals of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Fennel said the world needs to remove a billion tons of CO2 a year from the atmosphere by the middle of the century, and two billion tons a year by the end. of the century.
“It is of the utmost importance that these issues be investigated by scientists who have no financial interest in the research results and who are driven solely by the desire to ensure safe implementation if and only if ocean alkalinity proves effective in removing CO2,” Fennel said. “This must be done before it is deployed and scaled up.”
