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A heat shield for the most important ice on earth
- mitchbob 4y agoArchived: https://archive.ph/hCgjA https://archive.ph/hCgjA
- netfl0 4y ago“Engineers might be able to protect Arctic ice by coating it with tiny glass bubbles. Should they?” No.
- rektide 4y agoYou seem to think the answer is obvious? Why?
- zdragnar 4y agoBetteridge's law (of headlines) is an adage that states "Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no."
- Freire_Herval 4y agoIf the entire polar ice caps melt sea levels will rise approximately 230 feet. That's the end of every coastal city in the world. Given how all data trends point to how we are pretty much going to fail at stopping global warming, the glass bubbles are 100% worth considering EVEN when you consider the potential negative side effects.
- bwestergard 4y agoDo you have any citations for that specific figure that lay out a timeline?
- asquabventured 4y ago> Do you have any citations for that specific figure that lay out a timeline? https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0319262/ https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0319262/
- Freire_Herval 4y agoIt seems like a joke, but I believe that projections are exponential that's why it just hard to see why it's such a problem.
- SketchySeaBeast 4y agoI was really hoping for Waterworld.
- Freire_Herval 4y agohttps://www.worldwildlife.org/pages/why-are-glaciers-and-sea-ice-melting https://www.worldwildlife.org/pages/why-are-glaciers-and-sea... Before 2100. Estimates on that site say as close as 2040. It's mostly because this problem lacks visibility because we haven't been hit with the brunt of it yet. Hard to care about it when it's just some hypothetical impending problem for Florida real estate. Well before the ice caps completely melt, when the problem is evident we will likely turn to drastic solutions like this to change things regardless of the current opinion right now.
- ryanwaggoner 4y agoThat source absolutely does not claim that sea levels will rise 230 feet by 2100, or anything remotely close to that. There’s plenty to be concerned about with climate change without making unfounded breathless claims.
- Freire_Herval 4y agoThis source claims ice caps will completely melt around 2040 and before 2100. That was what was asked for. The 230 feet sea level rise as a result of complete melt down of polar ice caps is from OTHER sources. I can certainly provide that as well: https://www.usgs.gov/faqs/how-would-sea-level-change-if-all-glaciers-melted#:~:text=There%20is%20still%20some%20uncertainty,coastal%20city%20on%20the%20planet https://www.usgs.gov/faqs/how-would-sea-level-change-if-all-.... https://sealevel.nasa.gov/understanding-sea-level/global-sea-level/ice-melt https://sealevel.nasa.gov/understanding-sea-level/global-sea... (more than 160m) https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2020/oct/13/arctic-ice-melting-climate-change-global-warming https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2020/oct/... (all ice caps melted by 2035) These are not obscure pieces of data they aren't even close to unfounded they are in google and roughly the first search results. What I don't understand is the hostility here. Look up the facts yourself because you obviously didn't. It is illogical to be hostile towards something you didn't look up. I'm sure there's contradictory evidence too, but you obviously didn't dig for that because you offered nothing to counter the evidence I presented.
- MrVandemar 4y ago> If the entire polar ice caps melt sea levels will rise approximately 230 feet. That's the end of every coastal city in the world. Here's a better solution than glass bubbles or whatever geo-engineering stunt people come up with: how about we adjust our culture and attitude to value the biosphere instead of feeding it into a meatgrinder; to encourage companies to make things that last instead of making things that break and need to be thrown away; to look at our energy use and just stop using so much of it. How about that?
- bartislartfast 4y ago> encourage companies to... oh sweet flower child
- Freire_Herval 4y agoYeah I'll give you 10 million if you can convince one of your friends to stop driving gas cars to save the environment. If you cant do that how can you do it for the world? Idealistic pipe dream solutions won't happen. We have to mitigate our oil addiction with stop gap unideal solutions.
- SkyPuncher 4y agoThat’s easy, I’ll split your $10 large with my friend.
- MrVandemar 4y agoWhy "gas" cars? Why not electric cars? The electricity comes from somewhere, eg: coal, natural gas. Even with solar there are enormous environmental impacts from the manufacture and distribution of solar panels, batteries, etc.
- Freire_Herval 4y agoOk I'll give you another million if you can convince one of your friends to stop driving electric cars too.
- deleted 4y ago
- hoseja 4y agoI want all coastal cities to flood.
- bartislartfast 4y agoWikipedia > In the next 2,000 years the sea level is predicted to rise > by 2–3 m (6–10 ft) if the temperature rise peaks at 1.5 °C (2.7 °F), > by 2–6 m (6–19 ft) if it peaks at 2 °C (3.6 °F) and > by 19–22 m (62–72 ft) if it peaks at 5 °C (9.0 °F) Additionally > If temperature rise stops at 2 °C (3.6 °F) or at 5 °C (9.0 °F), the sea level would still continue to rise for about 10,000 years. In the first case it will reach 8–13 m (26–42 ft) above pre-industrial level, and in the second 28–37 m (92–12 ft). It is over 2000 years though. By 2100 the absolute worst case scenarios have sea level rise at about 2m (note: I rounded down halves of ft to make it more readable, but the metres are unchanged)
- Freire_Herval 4y agoYou got one source. There are other sources that say it will happen sooner. Many other sources and these sources are not obscure. Given multiple sources saying different things, It's hard to predict. Though what we are seeing are feedback loops that are causing exponential effects. I would say although we don't know... before 2100 is a realistic and viable possibility. Gambling solely on 2000 years because it's a more convenient prediction would be unwise. Either way, even if we don't know, now if sea levels do rise at a pace that will occur before 2100 we would eventually see it and adjust our reaction speed accordingly.
- bartislartfast 4y ago> Given multiple sources saying different things, It's hard to predict. Though what we are seeing are feedback loops that are causing exponential effects. > Gambling solely on 2000 years because it's a more convenient prediction would be unwise. I agree with both of these things. It's all so unpredictable. But I do think there's a sort of terror-cult around climate change which is not very helpful. The extreme doom scenarios are easier for people to reject and disbelieve and they make people sceptical of changes that are actually, demonstrably happening already.
- jeffbee 4y agoWhat happened to the idea of pumping seawater into the center of Antarctica, where is will freeze and accumulate? This is not addressing the energy balance, the way the project in the article does, but it's a direct attack on sea level change. And it would be huge and require a massive input of energy so it should scratch the itch of dedicated geoengineers.
- Freire_Herval 4y agoIsn't this the place where the polar ice caps are melting? Putting water in an area where ice is turning into water (aka melting) doesn't necessarily create more ice? Perhaps I'm missing some details here?
- jeffbee 4y agoAs I understand it, it is melting at the edges but not in the center. But it does not accumulate in the center very rapidly.
- perihelions 4y agoThat would consume more energy than the entire rest of human activities combined. It's hydroelectric power — but in reverse, and on a grand, geoengineering scale. https://www.google.com/search?q=%281+meter+%2F+100+years%29+*+%28radius+of+earth%29%5E2+*+%284*pi%29+*+2.5+km+*+9.8+m%2Fs%5E2+*+1+kg%2FL https://www.google.com/search?q=%281+meter+%2F+100+years%29+... (2.5 km for mean elevation of Antarctica; 1 meter/100 years for rough approximation of sea level rise to be countered).
- ComputerGuru 4y agoWhile hearing about record sea level heat numbers on the radio this morning, it occurred to me that a project to actively cool the ocean with zero-emission energy (ideally nuclear) might be a worthy undertaking.
- yrro 4y agoHmm... where do we pump the heat to?
- ginko 4y agoSpace
- onion2k 4y agoThe thermal capacity of space is quite low, what with it being a vacuum and everything.
- karmakurtisaani 4y agoThe original idea seems a bit out there, but technically you could use space as a heat sink. This is what happens on deserts at nights when the sky is clear for example.
- rob74 4y agoOk, then you just have to stop that obnoxious sun from heating it all up again during the day. Which leads us straight to the various geoengineering proposals for limiting the amount of energy absorbed from the sun. The problem (or rather, one of the problems) is to avoid falling into the opposite extreme...
- karmakurtisaani 4y agoWell, technically no (I don't know why I'm arguing for this idea, as it's clearly infeasible). You could run a cooling system at night on the desert, where the heat would be radiated to space. The net effect would cool the planet. Obviously it would not be feasible for any significant cooling, but in theory it would work. I mean clearly the sun would keep heating up the planet, but this would be a different infeasible idea from the other infeasible ideas of shading the sun light and whatnot. But you know, anything but limiting consumption, touching our diets etc.
- sillywalk 4y agoCoating the arctic ice in glass micro-bubbles, seems about as viable as this Futurama solution. [0] [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0SYpUSjSgFg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0SYpUSjSgFg
- szundi 4y agoIt would be the greatest littering of all time in the name of protecting the environment.
- iamleppert 4y agoCan you imagine once the ice is finally melted, the riches that lay beneath? There is likely to be a jambalaya of natural resources, ready for the enterprise or fledgling startup! Why not let the ice melt, and start a business based on it?!
- bonzini 4y agoPoe's law?
- throwawaymanbot 4y ago[dead]
- shrimp_emoji 4y agoLike treasure. Or even better than treasure -- a talking dinosaur! Who we can all have adventures with!! https://youtu.be/PNjIWeDnz4E?t=47 https://youtu.be/PNjIWeDnz4E?t=47
- stronglikedan 4y agoPlus the ice maker industry would start booming!
- bmacho 4y agoYou mean the viruses and bacteria? How could you make money of that?
- BizarroLand 4y agoSelling the treatments (and the cures, if you're rich enough)
- taskforcegemini 4y agoI'd rather have the albedo
- earthscienceman 4y agoErrrr. Journalism. Yikes. This happens to be precisely one of the research topics I study, sea ice energy feedbacks and constraints. Two prominent sea ice physicists have gone through the effort to directly debunk this because it's such a bad idea[1]. One is my friend and we talked about it at length. The initial white paper outlining their geoengineering plan has very basic flaws in their physical assumptions and spectral response. This is an astonishingly bad idea. I'm disappointed in the lack of background+context provided by the New Yorker here... https://www.gi.alaska.edu/news/study-glass-microspheres-wont-save-arctic-sea-ice https://www.gi.alaska.edu/news/study-glass-microspheres-wont...
- irrational 4y agoWhat surprises me is how many coastal people are either ignorant of or in denial about sea level rise. We were recently at the coast and there were new homes going up, right on the beach, just a few feet above current sea level. That just seems like complete insanity to me.
- Haga 4y ago[dead]