Proponents of modifying the ocean to battle climate change have rising hopes for their biomass sinking plans, but critics fear the environmental impacts
Life will find a way. Microbes seem to be very resilient in adapting to extreme conditions, and they seem able to do their thing (which for some is to produce methane) so long as they are not literally frozen. Rice agriculture has higher methane emissions than (all?) other crops due to the anaerobic soil conditions in the flooded fields, so intuitively, sinking a bunch of vegetable matter in the ocean would yield similar results. Even if the cold of the deep sea slows them down, those microbes will find a way to foil this geoengineering plan. A delay of a few decades is optimistic indeed.
Life will find a way. Microbes seem to be very resilient in adapting to extreme conditions, and they seem able to do their thing (which for some is to produce methane) so long as they are not literally frozen. Rice agriculture has higher methane emissions than (all?) other crops due to the anaerobic soil conditions in the flooded fields, so intuitively, sinking a bunch of vegetable matter in the ocean would yield similar results. Even if the cold of the deep sea slows them down, those microbes will find a way to foil this geoengineering plan. A delay of a few decades is optimistic indeed.