Researchers over in the Northeast have just poured 65,000 liters of sodium hydroxide into the Gulf of Maine

in order to conduct a geoengineering project, which they claim at least might combat climate change.

This trial, which is officially called the Loch Ness Project, it took place last August, about 50 miles off the coast of Massachusetts.

That was when scientists from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution were seen pouring literally tons of this bright red chemical directly into the water over the course of roughly four days.

The thinking is that by making the ocean more alkaline, it'll suck more CO2 from the atmosphere and turn it into harmless baking soda. The addition of the red color, it was just there for tracking purposes.

Now, this is something that the ocean does already do naturally. It's estimated, in fact, that the five oceans trap a combined total of 38 trillion

tons of CO2, but that's their natural limit based on the current average pH level of the water.

The oceans literally cannot absorb any more CO2, at least naturally. However, this is exactly

where the scientists come in. The thinking is, by changing the pH level of the

ocean using sodium hydroxide, they can get the ocean to absorb ever more CO2. Quote,

the geoengineering method known as ocean alkalinity enhancement, aims to speed up this natural

process by resetting the ocean's pH. Over four days, scientists added vast quantities

of sodium hydroxide, an alkaline chemical tagged with a red dye to the waters off the coast of Boston.

Making the ocean more alkaline should encourage it to absorb even more CO2 from the atmosphere.

Now over on their official website, you can see that the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute actually

has a graphic showing this idea as a simple drawing. Essentially in the past, they claimed that

the oceans were a lot more basic. However, with the addition of ever more CO2 from the atmosphere,

the oceans began a process of absorbing the carbon dioxide from the air and becoming more and more acidic over time.

However, through their alkalinity enhancement procedure, they can add sodium hydroxide to the ocean water,

which will, at least in theory, lower the pH level while at the same time allowing ever more CO2 to be captured.

And so that's the basic theory that they had going in.

This institute, they then got approval from the EPA and conducted a test by pouring this

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