5 ms·
Kind of crazy, but I wonder if it could some how be towed back and tied to the main shelf to avoid it melting quickly once it reaches warm water.
by arlattimore 3y ago
Kind of crazy, but I wonder if it could some how be towed back and tied to the main shelf to avoid it melting quickly once it reaches warm water.
- zrail 3y agoHow would you approach towing a 1500 square mile chunk of ice?
- chihuahua 3y agoThat's a perfectly reasonable SWE interview question.
- kibibu 3y ago"I would definitely use a linked list, or maybe a hash map"
- chihuahua 3y agoNo, it's more along the lines of the "Why are manhole covers round?" and "How many barbers are there in Portland?" questions that Microsoft used to love a long time ago.
- linkjuice4all 3y agoIt looks like you’ve got a lot of experience but we’re a crushed ice shop and you’re mostly familiar with cubed ice - so I’m sorry it won’t be a good fit.
- stavros 3y agoWind turbines running in reverse.
- esafak 3y ago"The miles aren't coming off in reverse."
- gosub100 3y agoif the wind was predictable enough...maybe fashion a sail by melting the tops of the structure in a cold (pun intended), calculated shape that would push it back from whence it came?
- mr_toad 3y agoWe’re gonna need a bigger boat.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago> How would you approach towing a 1500 square mile chunk of ice? Very slowly, and by nudging it into prevailing winds and currents [1]. Definitely within our capability to move it. Not sure if it is worth it to keep it there. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/science/2005/mar/31/thisweekssciencequestions4 https://www.theguardian.com/science/2005/mar/31/thisweekssci...
- axelthegerman 3y agoWondering how much fossil fuel we want to burn to do that
- LargoLasskhyfv 3y agoUse nukkular subs, carriers & icebreakers.
- lttlrck 3y agoEven if that could be done, how would it be anchored in place? If anchoring is possible it might be sensible to anchor it where it is now and forget the towing. Shame it isn't as simple as hoisting a huge sail on it.
- justrealist 3y agoStratospheric kites.
- ars 3y agoThe force required to move it is probably beyond the capability of mankind. And the rope required to secure it is for SURE beyond mankind's capability. This thing is larger than some of the worlds largest cities! Even a nuclear bomb would not destroy it.
- SteveNuts 3y agoWe're going to need to send the world's best offshore drilling team. Hopefully no one gets space dementia.
- justinwp 3y ago> weighing nearly a trillion metric tonnes I'm not sure what would be capable of moving that :) https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Images/2021/01/In_perspective_1_trillion_tonnes_of_ice https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Images/2021/01/In_perspec...
- civilitty 3y agoWe’ve still got like 12,000 nukes left worldwide - this would be the perfect time to test Project Orion in atmo! With all that water vapor that would enter the atmosphere and increase the albedo, we’d probably solve climate change for a few generations too.
- Retric 3y ago> With all that water vapor that would enter the atmosphere and increase the albedo, we’d probably solve climate change for a few generations You realize excess water vapor = rain right? I have heard people say stuff like that before but I never understood the disconnect where they think throwing water into the air will somehow not result in it coming down within days or weeks.
- civilitty 3y agoWater vapor = clouds. We can just use a chain of nukes to make sure it makes it even higher beyond the troposphere.
- Retric 3y agoWater vapor is an invisible gas, clouds are dust + water droplets and or ice. Pushing water higher isn’t going to change anything here. Updrafts from major storms can dump a lot of water in the stratosphere, but it doesn’t stay there for long.
- civilitty 3y agoWater vapor becomes ice when you nuke it high enough into the atmosphere.
- perihelions 3y agoWhy? It's already floating and displacing its own weight in water.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago> It's already floating and displacing its own weight in water That doesn’t make it lighter, i.e less subject to inertia. It just means you don’t have to contend with surface friction forces in a non-drag way.
- perihelions 3y agoI mean, what's the purpose of "avoid[ing] it melting quickly once it reaches warm water"—it's a no-op.
- axelthegerman 3y agoGuess we'll have to throw it back on the ice sheet. But ya the fact that it already broke off means we have bigger things to worry about than one specific iceberg
- gpm 3y agoNot an expert, but I can come up with some plausible sounding reasons. Ice melting decreases albedo causing increased warming. Keeping it at the pole keeps it from melting. Melting at the pole will result in ice that is current sitting on land moving to water, significantly increasing ocean level. Replacing a trillion tonnes of ice with a trillion tonnes of water at the pole, even assuming both are at exactly 0C, introduces a lot of energy to the system (333 quintillion joules, aka 333 exajoules. Wolfram alpha helpfully tells me this is about the total amount of solar energy that hits the earth in ~30 minutes, or 0.93x the total human energy consumption in 2010). It stands to reason that introducing that much additional energy to the antarctic system will increase ice melt and the chance/amount of ice sliding off of land into water. The fine article includes some comments about how this big chunk of ice could get in the way of ecosystems. Ultimately I doubt we can stop a trillion ton glacier from doing what it wants without expending absurd amounts of energy (to our detriment). But if we could snap our fingers and keep it where it is, I'm pretty sure we should.
- oh_sigh 3y agoIt won't melt quickly once reaching warm water. There's a huge amount of volume contained by a fairly small surface area - this iceberg would last for years in the Caribbean. A better idea, if you can tow it, is to tow it to one of the gulf states or somewhere else with a severe potable water shortage.
- grecy 3y agoHuh, this was a classic question asked at my University to final-year Engineering students on the "welcome back/fun day" (also build a bridge out of straws). The guesstimated answers needed to consider how many ships and how much fuel would be required to tow it, losses due to melting, and storage/use once it arrives at it's "destination".