The Ocean Embassy - #04 Ocean CDR Series with Dr. Mar Fernández-Méndez — How can we ensure the development of science-driven carbon capturing methods in the ocean?

#04 Ocean CDR Series with Dr. Mar Fernández-Méndez — How can we ensure the development of science-driven carbon capturing methods in the ocean?

08/16/22 • 55 min

Hi and welcome back to the Ocean Embassy for another exciting Ocean CDR episode!

In the first episode of this multi-part CDR series, we laid out how the ocean carbon cycle works, what the blue carbon hype is about and which policy frameworks are supporting these blue carbon efforts. Today, we will actually look at one of the ways in which we can artificially enhance carbon uptake. If you listened to the previous episode of this series, you will have noticed that one particular thing is mentioned a lot: the lack of science behind various ocean-based carbon capturing methodologies and therefore the need to treat them very carefully. Today, we are hearing from someone who has a bit of a different perspective on this: Dr. Mar Fernandez-Mendez is a marine biologist with degrees in Marine Microbiology and Biological Oceanography and a distinguished research career at the GEOMAR and Alfred-Wegener-Institutes in Germany, the two most renowned marine research institutions in this country. Her research has evolved from studying marine nutrients in upwelling systems to the potential of seaweeds, in particular a macro-algae called Sargassum. She has been a part of a super cool research project called The Ocean Artificial Upwelling project.

Artificial upwelling refers to an engineering method where essentially, nutrient-rich waters that have low CO2 concentration from the deep sea are exchanged with CO2-rich waters from the upper oceans, enhancing on one hand more carbon uptake at the surface while also storing more CO2 at depths. There are a few hiccups and uncertainties with this technology, though, from how one can actually do this to what effect this can have on all sorts of things such as involuntarily also bringing carbon from the deep sea to the surface or seriously messing with marine organisms that depend on the right nutrients at certain depths.

However, Mar also recently co-founded a company called Seafield Solutions, which is trying to solve exactly that problem: by using another big player in the carbon capture world: Sargassum. Sargassum is a form of macro algae, taking up large amounts of CO2 in order to grow, very well recognizable thanks to its sort of balloons between its leaves. But this algae is actually causing a lot of problems on beaches especially in the Caribbean and on the West Coast of Africa because there is too much of it floating in the sea due to misbalanced ecosystems.

Mar and I talked about her research, how technology assists in the first pilot experiments of artificial upwelling and how Sargassum is helping with that. We also discuss what is needed to achieve a careful balance between trying to do good by capturing carbon versus assessing the risk of altering marine ecosystems.

Cover art: Simon + Anna Madlener. Based on the Spilhaus world projection.

Music and Sound Effects: Lukas Bindel

Mixing: Anna Madlener

#ocean #climateaction #climatecrisis #unoceandecade #bluecarbon #carboncapturetechnology #technology #robotics #sciencecommunication #marineconservation #podcast #science #climatescience #technology #womeninstemm #womeninscience

Hi and welcome back to the Ocean Embassy for another exciting Ocean CDR episode!

Cover art: Simon + Anna Madlener. Based on the Spilhaus world projection.

Music and Sound Effects: Lukas Bindel

Mixing: Anna Madlener

Previous Episode

#03b Ocean CDR Series — How does the ocean sequester carbon and which policies are required to support the blue economy?

This is part 2 of the first of The Ocean Embassy's series on ocean-based Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) technologies. One of many discussed solutions to the climate crisis, besides of course emission reduction, is the potential of storing carbon in the ocean, for example using marine biomass such as seaweed or more complicated chemical mechanisms. In order to really understand how those solutions might be working, though, today’s episode will start out with actually explaining how the ocean takes up and processes carbon in the first place. Not only are we talking about that, however, but we are also discussing what is behind that huge promise of blue carbon, as it is often termed.

And to make it even more exciting, on this episode I don’t have one guest, but five! The groundwork and basis for this long conversation is a paper published by seven phenomenal female scientists who have a very multidisciplinary background within the marine science and policy sector. The paper is called The Promise of Blue Carbon Climate Solutions: Where the Science Supports Ocean-Climate Policy written by Anne B. Christianson, Anna Cabre, Blanca Bernal, Stacy K. Baez, Shirley Leung, Alicia Perez-Porro and Elvira Poloczanska.

With five of these authors I dissected their paper, talking about the different mechanisms of the oceanic carbon cycle, the ways in which climate solutions can enhance or support these mechanisms, and to what degree we already have policy supporting that. With a group of such interdisciplinary guests we really get a broad perspective on the issue or potential of blue carbon and you will see, also throughout the entire series of next episodes, that opinions are sometimes quite far apart. Nonetheless, in this episode we sort of set the ground rules for understanding the carbon cycle in the first place and getting a sense of how incredibly difficult it is to create policy supporting that science, and vice versa.

Cover art: Simon + Anna Madlener. Based on the Spilhaus world projection.

Music and Sound Effects: Lukas Bindel

Mixing: Anna Madlener

Next Episode

#05 Melania Guerra — How is marine science informing policy decisions and technological developments and vice versa?

Today you will hear from Melania Guerra, a super inspirational and inspiring woman. She is from Costa Rica with an American background and originally studied mechanical engineering. Afterwards, she did a PhD in Oceanography at Scripps in Southern California, interned at NASA and worked at several research institutes focusing especially on ocean acoustics before she transitioned into public policy and science diplomacy, working at the United Nations for a yeaar. After getting another Masters Degree in Public Policy, Melania is since this year working as the Director of Science Strategy at Planet in Berlin, which is where I finally met her in person.

What I love very much about this conversation with Melania, unlike my previous episodes, is that we really kind of drift through a lot of common interests and topics. We talk about her research in ocean acoustics and how this science informed public policy, discuss the BBNJ and Deep Sea Mining treaty negotiated during our recording at the United Nations, hop over to her current work place and generally discuss the importance between technology development and marine science. To me, she really embodies what I think about when I envision an interdisciplinary ocean expert—I hope you enjoy this conversation and excuse our drifting off topic hear and there.

“Show notes” for the first time, this is the coral atlas Melania mentioned in the end where satellite data played an important role:

https://www.allencoralatlas.org/

Cover art: Simon + Anna Madlener. Based on the Spilhaus world projection.

Music and Sound Effects: Lukas Bindel

Mixing: Anna Madlener

#ocean #climateaction #bbnj #deepseamining #climatecrisis #unoceandecade #bluecarbon #technology #robotics #sciencecommunication #marineconservation #sciencediplomacy #podcast #science #climatescience #technology #womeninstemm #womeninscience