Perspectives on Biological Research for CO2 Ocean Sequestration

Abstract

Feasibility studies recently suggest that sequestration of anthropogenic CO2 in the deep ocean could help reduce the atmospheric CO2 concentration. However, implementation of this strategy could have a significant environmental impact on marine organisms. This has highlighted the urgent need of further studies concerning the biological impact of CO2 ocean sequestration. In this paper we summarize the recent literature reporting on the biological impact of CO2 and discuss the research work required for the future. Although fundamental research of the effect of CO2 on marine organisms before the practical consideration of CO2 ocean sequestration was limited, laboratory and field studies concerning biological impacts have been increasing after the first international workshop in 1991 discussing CO2 ocean sequestration. Acute impacts of CO2 ocean sequestration could be determined by laboratory and field experiments and assessed by simulation models as described by the following papers in this section. On the other hand, chronic effects of CO2 ocean sequestration, those directly related to the marine ecosystem, would be difficult to verify by means of experiments and to assess using ecosystem models. One of the practical solutions for this issue implies field experiments starting with controlled small scale and eventually to a large scale of CO2 injection intended to determine ecosystem alteration.