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Originally Posted by peteshimmon
Right you have had a rest! Might there be an answer to my point that
lots of propellors may be damaging plankton reducing the capacity of the
oceans to be a carbon sink?
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I would expect that there's no research to present in response to your idea because its not a realistic scenario. First, you'd have to have some evidence that the motion of propellors would damage plankton - specifically phytoplankton. Now by defintion the phytoplankton are quite small. Imagine putting a boat engine into a swimming pool and then putting in some rice. How much of the rice is actually going to get hacked up by the propellor? Now consider that phytoplankton is generally much smaller than the rice. Its probably going to be a rare cell of algae that is unfortunate enough to get hacked.
But now expand this to the scale of the ocean. What is the distribution of phytoplankton with depth? Obviously phytoplankton in the Euphototic zone, but below the depth of ship propellors will be safe.
What % of the ocean is covered by ship travel? Not much - considering they're 70% of the surface and that there are shipping lanes of high boat travel. If anything your scenario is a good example of why we must be careful not to overestimate the impact we can have upon this planet.