LARGE WATER BODY OXYGENATION (SEAS, OCEANS) IN FOCUS (ENGINEERING OCEAN FOR CLIMATE WARMING)
Veli Albert Kallio
Besides reporting on the recent developments at United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)s annual roadshow UN Conference of Parties 25 (COP25) currently meeting in Madrid, Spain, there is also a passage of sad news item - just emerged - which I must pass as first:
IN MEMORIAM: DR MATTI K. LAPPALAINEN
Dr. Matti K. Lappalainen, Councellor of the State of Finland on Environment ('Ymparistoneuvos'), the world's foremost expert in large water body oxygenation (oceans, seas, the Amazon river etc) has died in a research-related accident. As a Vice-President, Environmental Affairs at Sea Research Society, I was often doing projects with him and he was my co-author on research on mitigation of the Amazon ecosystems for the changing climate which we presented at the World Water Week, Stockholm, August 2007. More recently Matti worked to oxygenate the Baltic Sea. In Tammisaari, Finland he rehabilitated 28km2 pilot plot and another anoxic sea area near Stockholm, Sweden of slightly smaller size. Future plans held for oxygenation of anoxic sea area east of Gotland, Sweden and in various other locations around the Baltic Sea. Before Dr Lappalainen, no one had ever attempted or succeeded in recovering anoxic seas and oceans by the breakthrough Mixox technology. He also made dissertation of his work for the University of Oulu. The world has lost one of its greatest minds and unique expert who is near impossible to replace. https://www.academia.edu/4299120/Kallio_Veli_A._and_Lappalainen_M._Preparing_the_Amazon_Ecosystems_for_the_Changing_Climate_pp._240-241
The most recent research and PhD dissertation of Matti Lappalainen1,2 (268 pages)
2University of Oulu, Faculty of Technology, Environmental Engineering
http://urn.fi/urn:isbn:9789526219417
http://jultika.oulu.fi/Record/isbn978-952-62-1941-7
http://jultika.oulu.fi/files/isbn9789526219417.pdfThe eutrophication of the Baltic Sea continues despite decrease of the external phosphorus load by as much as 80% of the target confirmed by HELCOM. The aim of this thesis is to investigate this paradox, critically evaluate previous explanations for the persistent eutrophication, and to introduce a new diagnosis and paradigm for the causes and processes behind eutrophication of the Baltic Sea.
According to the current consensus, anthropogenic nutrient loading is nearly the sole cause of eutrophication and regular cyanobacterial blooms. However, this study shows that the areal phosphorus loading rate, when modeled properly, is surprisingly low, and unlikely to be the primary cause of eutrophication. Instead, the frequency of the salt water pulses has decreased dramatically during the past 40 years. This is the root cause of eutrophication, via the hyper-vicious cycle of the hypoxic and finally anoxic conditions of the deeps causing internal phosphorus loading, denitrification, and nitrogen and carbon fixation. Furthermore, this work confirms that nitrogen fixation increases in low nitrogen conditions, further increasing eutrophication and cyanobacterial blooms. Thus, the most effective way to break the cycle of eutrophication is to improve the oxygen conditions of the deeps, which really is impossible to achieve by decreasing external loading alone.
A key result of this work is that natural processes, rather than human activity, plays a decisive role in the eutrophication process – a perspective that typically faces substantial resistance. This thesis discusses how sociological and political views have affected the scientific community and its pursuit to model the mechanisms of eutrophication of the Baltic Sea.
In conclusion, this study leads to important novel insights by providing new models for calculating the external and internal phosphorus loads of the Baltic Sea, with results highlighting the importance of natural processes of internal loading from the anoxic deeps. Altogether, this thesis introduces a new a paradigm for eutrophication of the Baltic Sea.
