Hey; and thanks for not blasting me on the "shading the poles" comment. I know much less about that one than I do about the oceans aspect.
In general I think we overfertilize the coastal areas (and maybe shipping lanes) and overharvest the food chain (defertilizing the open ocean?); both of which disrupt and lower the productivity overall. Oh yea, and then there are the toxins and oil that we add along with all our "nutrients." I don't think any of this helps productivity (except for random instances).
Whales used to eat a million tons a day of CO2 (in plankton). Now it is more like a thousand tons/day because there are so few whales. I think that'd be true across the board.
I've been thinking about this for months and am still learning about the overall picture of climate influences. Overall I wonder if the increase in CO2 over the "industrial era" might be more tied to our depletion of the productivity of the oceans. The assumption being that healthy oceans would have been able to soak up the increasing CO2.
Or restating it: Wouldn't our 7GT CO2 be negligible if the oceans were cycling Tera Tons of Carbon every year. I don't now what the oceans are capable of, but oceans hold more than 10-100 times as much carbon as the atmosphere.
I guess I also feel that if the oceans aren't made into better carbon sinks, cutting down on our output of carbon by even 50% won't make much diffenece. Isn't the decrease in pH of the oceans an indication that they won't be absorbing much more CO2?
Every thing I read about fertilizing the oceans ends with a paragraph saying that we can't recommend this because it'd probably have worse unintended consequences; but how is that any different from what we've been doing all along to the lands, rivers, lakes, and oceans?
Am I all wet here?
~SA
