Biosphere 2?

Question

Did they have greehouse effect, since in fact they were a greenhouse?

Answer 1

You bet they did. Keeping the place cool was a constant struggle, and one of the reasons the experiment was less than successful.

Answer 2

Oddly, one problem that plagued Biosphere 2 was the fact that the windows reduced the solar intensity so that plant productivity was not nearly as high as they predicted.  So they sort of had a weird "greenhouse effect" in that a lot of the photosynthetically available radiation (PAR) got absorbed by the glass panes and turned into heat before it reached the plants.  When Columbia took it over in the late 90's for research, this was a show-stopper in terms of using it as a serious research facility.  

A second problem that went largely unreported, and far more serious than PAR availability, was that nitrous oxide in the air built up in the dome, almost to toxic levels.  I vaguely recall this was because they had unintentionally gotten the biochemistry of the ocean wrong, so that the nitrogen fixers went wild (although it could also have been soil because they did something goofy with the soil organic content as well that caused problems (the soil issue might have been related to the excess CO2 somebody else mentioned)).  

There were some ecological catastrophes in the dome as well, where desert ants chewed through the window insulation and colonized the dome.  In some ways that was good, because the ants preyed on the other obnoxious invasive insect inside, cockroaches, except the Bionauts could feed the roaches to the chickens but the chickens wouldn't eat the ants.  The ants also wiped out a bunch of other beneficial insects specifically placed in the dome.  

What Biosphere 2 showed was that the idea of "slow" interstellar travel on large self-sufficient space ships or a sulf-sustaining colony on Mars or the Moon is a science fiction fantasy.  Real ecosystems are too complex to "manage" in closed conditions, and that continual energy and material input from outside sources is required.  There was an article in Nature that made this point, that Biosphere 2 showed we likely already inhabit the only spaceship we ever will, and we ought to be more careful with it since there is nowhere else to go if we break it.

Answer 3

All we need to do,according to your grasp of the situation, is to outlaw all green houses!  Feel better?

Answer 4

They had trouble with CO2 in the sphere, it increased to 3400 ppm.  Oxygen dropped to 14%.  Temperature was constant at 85F.  Morale dropped too.  The study of this phenomenon is "confined environment psychology", and according to Jane Poynternot nearly enough of it was brought to bear on Biosphere 2.

Before the first closure mission was half over, the group had split into two factions and people who had been intimate friends had become implacable enemies, barely on speaking terms.

The faction inside the bubble came from a rift between the joint venture partners on how the science should proceed, as biospherics or as specialist ecosystem studies. Was the Biosphere a scientific experiment or a business venture? Or perhaps just an enormous art installation? There was a high-powered Scientific Advisory Committee (SAC), and they, of course, felt that Biosphere 2 was about science, or else what were they there for? The faction that included Poynter felt strongly that they should be making formal proposals for research for the SAC to evaluate. The other faction included Abigail Alling, the titular director of research inside the bubble, and who sided with John Allen in blocking that move. On February 14, the entire SAC resigned.  Time Magazine, wrote:

    Now, the veneer of credibility, already bruised by allegations of tamper-prone data, secret food caches and smuggled supplies, has cracked .... the two-year experiment in self-sufficiency is starting to look less like science and more like a $150 million stunt.

Undoubtedly the lack of oxygen and the calorie restricted nutrient dense diet contributed to low morale. The Alling faction feared that the Poynter group were prepared to go so far as to import food, if it meant making them fitter to carry out research projects. They considered that would be a project failure by definition.   Members in the sphere often ordered pizzas for delivery, banged on cooking pots, made monkey noises, and opened windows without permission.

The external management could certainly have done more to defuse the intolerable situation inside. Instead they provoked the Poynter faction further by putting Sally Silverstone in charge of day-to-day agricultural operations, replacing Poynter.

In November the hungry Biospherians began eating emergency food supplies that had not been grown inside the bubble. Poynter made Chris Helms, PR Director for the enterprise, aware of this. She was promptly dismissed by Margret Augustine, CEO of Space Biospheres Ventures, and told to come out of the biosphere. She responded by setting her mattress on fire and throwing it into the artificial jungle room.