Ken Buesseler' 86

“A Research Strategy for Ocean Carbon Dioxide Removal and Sequestration”

The oceans are at the heart of climate change. They have absorbed 80% of the excess heat, over 30% of the excess CO2 and contain more plant life than all the forests in the world

February is MIT climate month and we will have a zoom meeting with Dr.  Ken Buesseller ' 86 to discuss with us the ocean carbon cycle and the potential for CO2 sequestration in the oceans.  Please join us for an  interesting discussion on all aspects of CDR, from science priorities, to governance, social acceptance, etc.

Ken Buesseler is a marine radiochemist who studies the fate and distribution of radioactive elements in the ocean.  Their radioactive decay properties can tell us something about time-scales, or how quickly processes take place.  Applications include studies of the ocean carbon cycle where the naturally occurring isotopes of thorium tell us how quickly and how much carbon is carried on sinking particles from the sun lite surface ocean through the ocean twilight zone to the deep sea. His research interests include:

• Upper-ocean biogeochemical cycles and fluxes of carbon and associated elements as part of the ocean biological pump.
• Improvement in methods to quantify and assess suspended and sinking particles abundances, sources and transport in the ocean.
• Use of man-made and naturally occurring radionuclides to study ocean processes.
• Assessment of radioactivity associated with the releases from Chernobyl, Fukushima, the Marshall Islands and other localized sources.
• Assessment of the ocean’s role in regulating climate and to what degree ocean carbon dioxide removal might be enhanced in a responsible, transparent and quantifiable way.

We suggest you visit the WHOI Café Thorium web site  prior to the presentation.

experiments in progress: Ocean visions