The seas themselves might be modified to combat global warming by absorbing climate-altering carbon dioxide from the air, research now reveals. The new approach scientists have theorized—which ideally modifies seawater's chemical composition using treatment plants near volcanoes and coastlines—could also help benefit coral reefs worldwide, they suggest. But they caution such a technique could potentially also have detrimental environmental impacts that need to be minimized. Carbon dioxide is a "greenhouse gas" that traps heat from the sun. The oceans naturally both absorb and release carbon dioxide, and researchers have investigated whether they can make the seas capture more of the gas than normal to combat global warming. One notion brought up in the past involves fertilizing the seas with iron to encourage the growth of plankton, which would absorb carbon dioxide during photosynthesis just as land plants do, "but a lot of them would just release carbon dioxide again," said Harvard geoscientist Kurt House. Instead, House and his colleagues propose extracting acid from the seas. The less acidic the oceans are, the more they absorb carbon. The scientists envision treatment plants that suck in seawater and remove hydrochloric acid. The oceans naturally contain hydrogen and chloride ions—the former is a component of water, while the latter is an ingredient of common salt—which together can make hydrochloric acid. A number of industrial processes can remove the acid from seawater, including ones used in the vitamin and chlorine industries."It's certainly an interesting approach," said Columbia University environmental engineer Frank Zeman, who did not participate in this study. Speeding up nature: Ideally, these novel treatment plants would be located near volcanic coastlines, the researchers explained. The silicates in volcanic rocks could neutralize the extracted acid, while the volcano itself could generate the geothermal power needed to run such operations.
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