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This is one of these interesting topics where people are very likely to ask, "Have they thought of this?" And it would be great if there were a list of discard

This is one of these interesting topics where people are very likely to ask, "Have they thought of this?" And it would be great if there were a list of discarded ideas along with the reasons for why they were discarded. For instance I specifically would like to know if large areas of IR reflective material could be used to cover strategic areas in the arctic and antarctic to build up ice barriers. Coat sensitive areas with something that stops the ice from absorbing heat and hey presto maybe you get significant gains for your investment?

DennisP 9y ago
Some people are actually working on that. For example, Ice911 is testing high-albedo sand: http://www.ice911.org/ http://www.ice911.org/ Arctic researcher Peter Wadhams has been advocating geoengineering. His recent book A Farewell to Ice is a grim but fascinating read. Here's a short piece he wrote for Scientific American: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/geoengineering-last-chance-save-sea-ice/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/geoengineering-la... Other proposals for increasing arctic albedo include using wind-powered ships to seed low-altitude clouds with seawater, injecting sulfur dioxide to high altitudes, and actually making more ice by using millions of windmill buoys to pump cold deep water to the surface. Here's an article on that last one: https://asunow.asu.edu/20161222-solutions-asu-scientists-propose-restoring-arctic-ice-10-million-windmills https://asunow.asu.edu/20161222-solutions-asu-scientists-pro...
Robotbeat 9y ago
Of course, ice is already very high albedo. Might be difficult to find something better that you can directly apply to the ice. One idea for helping to terraform Mars (by thickening the atmosphere) is to apply black carbon dust to the glaciers. We're kind of doing that by accident here by burning fossil fuels that produce soot that ends up on glaciers. So reducing fossil fuel burning and soot production would help do what you're trying to do.

DennisP 9y ago

Some people are actually working on that. For example, Ice911 is testing high-albedo sand: http://www.ice911.org/ http://www.ice911.org/ Arctic researcher Peter Wadhams has been advocating geoengineering. His recent book A Farewell to Ice is a grim but fascinating read. Here's a short piece he wrote for Scientific American: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/geoengineering-last-chance-save-sea-ice/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/geoengineering-la... Other proposals for increasing arctic albedo include using wind-powered ships to seed low-altitude clouds with seawater, injecting sulfur dioxide to high altitudes, and actually making more ice by using millions of windmill buoys to pump cold deep water to the surface. Here's an article on that last one: https://asunow.asu.edu/20161222-solutions-asu-scientists-propose-restoring-arctic-ice-10-million-windmills https://asunow.asu.edu/20161222-solutions-asu-scientists-pro...

Robotbeat 9y ago

Of course, ice is already very high albedo. Might be difficult to find something better that you can directly apply to the ice. One idea for helping to terraform Mars (by thickening the atmosphere) is to apply black carbon dust to the glaciers. We're kind of doing that by accident here by burning fossil fuels that produce soot that ends up on glaciers. So reducing fossil fuel burning and soot production would help do what you're trying to do.