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Could a £400bn plan to refreeze the Arctic before the ice melts really work?
- luhn 10y agoWhy are they so worried about the Arctic melting? Are they hiding something? http://www.theonion.com/article/melting-ice-caps-expose-hundreds-of-secret-arctic--2806 http://www.theonion.com/article/melting-ice-caps-expose-hund...
- tiku 10y agoOr perhaps drifting platforms that stay adrift at the edge and blow water onto the ice? That way it's even possible to measure the edges.. This way it would even help to stop pieces from breaking at the edge (and thus floating away to warmer climates.)
- nurettin 10y agoThis sounds like that futurama episode where they drop a giant ice cube into the sea whenever it gets too hot. https://www.outerplaces.com/science/item/13083-how-big-would-a-futurama-ice-cube-need-to-be-to-combat-climate-change-hint-really-big https://www.outerplaces.com/science/item/13083-how-big-would...
- nonbel 10y agoThese schemes are all insane. Just imagine the damage done to the environment by: 1) Tens of millions of fans floating in the ocean and blowing air on the ice. 2) Oceans being flooded with massive amounts of green algea, sucking up CO2 and producing who knows what out of it. 3) Filling the skys with sulfer aerosols to block out the sun. There is no way CO2 can be worse than any of those.
- dpedu 10y agoWhat? Did you read the article? That's not even close to the plan mentioned.
- nonbel 10y agoJust now I did, it says the new plan is: "building 10 million wind-powered pumps over the Arctic ice cap. In winter, these would be used to pump water to the surface of the ice where it would freeze, thickening the cap."
- JoeAltmaier 10y agoWouldn't that be salt water? Would it actually freeze at all?
- oppositelock 10y agoIt freezes just fine, just at a lower temperature of -2C.
- JoeAltmaier 10y agoI wonder why the polar oceans don't freeze solid?
- mustntmumble 10y agoBecause ice floats to the top of the water, and insulates the water remaining down below beneath the ice.
- Steel_Phoenix 10y agoA proposal to salt the Arctic in order to lower the melting temperature wouldn't get much support, but it seems like it's also a valid description of the plan.
- fuzzythinker 10y agoBecause Science's explanation of why it won't work: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fk9bKysYWLI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fk9bKysYWLI
- dragonbonheur 10y agoHow about deploying a cluster of "umbrella" satellites to throw some shade on regions of the planet that get too hot? 15 years of having less solar illumination, not complete darkness just a penumbra, could maybe do a lot. How big of a shadow would we need? Edit - someone already thought about it; http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20160425-how-a-giant-space-umbrella-could-stop-global-warming http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20160425-how-a-giant-space-u...
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- dTal 10y agoIf the political will to do something like that existed, we wouldn't need to do it.