Ocean alkalinity enhancement

The CO2 levels in the atmosphere continue to rise as we strive to reduce our emissions. Now, an international team of researchers proposes a radical solution: pour crushed stone into the sea and it will empower the water to absorb CO2 from the atmosphere. While countries worldwide discuss how to reduce CO2 emissions into the atmosphere, a growing number of researchers are exploring methods to remove CO2 from the atmosphere. One such researcher is marine biologist Carolin Löscher, who leads a research group at the Department of Biology and is engaged in doing experiments with the method. In essence, the idea is to pour crushed stone into seawater or river water, initiating a chemical process that will draw CO2 from the atmosphere into the ocean, where it is stored. The geological carbon cycle. "Few people are aware that carbon doesn't only circulate in a biological cycle. There is also a geological cycle on Earth where CO2 is removed by minerals over time, then weather and are washed into rivers and oceans where the CO2 can then sink out or chemically dissolve. This geological carbon cycle is crucial for the circulation of carbon on the planet; it largely regulates Earth's temperature and climate. It provides a long-term storage of carbon, which is an advantage compared to the biological cycle, which binds carbon in, for example, plants," explains Carolin Löscher. The geological carbon cycle, which works through rock weathering and transport into the oceans, operates much more slowly than the biological cycle. It takes much longer for a rock to weather than for a forest to grow. But what if we could speed up these geological weathering processes?