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{"id":1218,"date":"2024-04-05T06:28:21","date_gmt":"2024-04-05T06:28:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aitesonics.com\/the-ice-caps-are-melting-is-geoengineering-the-solution-150004916\/"},"modified":"2024-04-05T06:28:21","modified_gmt":"2024-04-05T06:28:21","slug":"the-ice-caps-are-melting-is-geoengineering-the-solution-150004916","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aitesonics.com\/the-ice-caps-are-melting-is-geoengineering-the-solution-150004916\/","title":{"rendered":"The ice caps are melting. Is geoengineering the solution?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Since 1979, Arctic ice has shrunk by 1.35 million square miles<\/a>, a new JPL study<\/a> found ice loss in Greenland is far worse than previously thought and Antarctic ice is now at the lowest level since records began<\/a>. The more they melt, the faster the rate of decline for the ice that remains until we\u2019re faced with a series of catastrophes. The most immediate of which is sea level rise which threatens to eradicate whole nations that are situated on low-lying islands. How do we stop such a problem? While we remedy the longer-term issues around fossil fuel consumption, we might have to buy ourselves more time with geoengineering.<\/p>\n

The severity of this situation can\u2019t be stressed enough. Professor John Moore of the Arctic Center, University of Lapland, says that we\u2019re long past the point where emissions reductions alone will be effective. \u201cWe are faced with this situation where there\u2019s no pathway to 1.5 [degrees] available through mitigation,\u201d he said. \u201cThings like the ice sheets [melting] and other tipping points will happen regardless,\u201d adding that the Earth\u2019s present situation is akin to a patient bleeding out on the operating table, \u201cwe are in this situation where we cannot mitigate ourselves out of the shit.\u201d<\/p>\n

Moore is one of the figures behind Frozen Arctic<\/em><\/a>, a report produced by the universities of the Arctic and Lapland alongside UN-backed thinktank GRID-Arendal. It\u2019s a rundown of sixty geoengineering projects<\/a> that could slow down or reverse polar melting. A team of researchers opted to examine every idea, from those already in place to the ones at the fringes of science. \u201cWe wanted to be thorough,\u201d said Moore, \u201cbecause even the craziest idea might have a nugget of gold in there.\u201d Each approach has been given a brief analysis, examining if it\u2019s feasible on a scientific or practical basis, if it would be potentially helpful and how much it would cost. The report even went so far as to look at pykrete, a wacky World War Two initiative to create artificial glaciers for strategic use by mixing sawdust or paper products into ice.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re curious and don\u2019t have a day or two to read the report yourself, you can boil down the approaches to a handful of categories. The first is Solar Radiation Management \u2014 i.e., making the polar regions more reflective to bounce away more of the sun\u2019s heat. Second, there\u2019s artificial ice generation to compensate for what has already been lost. Third, enormous engineering work to buttress, isolate and protect the remaining ice \u2014 like massive undersea walls that act as a barrier against the seas as they get warmer. Finally, there are measures that nibble at the edges of the problem in terms of effect, but have more viable long-term success, like preventing flora and fauna (and the warmth they radiate) from encroaching on regions meant to remain frozen.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re a climate scientist, the likely most obvious approach is the first, because we\u2019ve seen the positive effects of it before. Albedo is the climate science term to describe how white ice acts as an enormous reflector, bouncing away a lot of the sun\u2019s heat. Ice ages dramatically increase albedo, but there are more recent examples in living memory: In 1991 Mount Pinatubo, a volcano in the Philippines, erupted, spewing an enormous amount of volcanic ash into the atmosphere. (The event also caused a large amount of damage, displaced 200,000 people and claimed the lives of at least 722.) According to NOAA<\/a>, the ash dumped into the atmosphere helped reflect a lot of solar heat away from the Earth, causing a temporary global cooling effect of roughly 1.5 degrees celsius. The devastation of Pinatubo isn\u2019t desirable, nor was the ozone depletion that it caused, but that cooling effect could be vital to slowing global warming and polar melting.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s possible to do this artificially by seeding the clouds with chemicals deposited by an airplane or with ground-based smoke generators, which can also be used to promote rain clouds. This is a tactic already used in China to help make rain for agriculture and to alleviate drought-like conditions<\/a>. In this context, the clouds would act as a barrier between the sun and the ice caps, bouncing more of that solar radiation away from the Earth\u2019s surface. Unfortunately, there\u2019s a problem with this approach, which is that it\u2019s incredibly expensive and incredibly fussy. The report says it\u2019s only viable when the right clouds are overhead, and the work would require enormous infrastructure to be built nearby. Not to mention that while we have some small shreds of evidence to suggest it might be useful, there\u2019s nothing proven as yet.<\/p>\n

And then there are the second order effects when these approaches then spill over into the rest of the global ecosystem. \u201cIf you do sunlight reflection methods and you put anything up in the atmosphere, it doesn\u2019t stay where you put it.\u201d That\u2019s the big issue identified by Dr. Phil Williamson, honorary associate professor at the University of East Anglia and a former contributor to the UN\u2019s keystone Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports<\/a>. His concern is that regional, targeted climate solutions \u201cdon\u2019t solve the problem for the whole world,\u201d and that if you\u2019re not tackling climate change on a global scale, then you\u2019re \u201cjust accentuating the difference.\u201d With a cold arctic, but rising temperatures elsewhere, you\u2019re climbing aboard a \u201cclimate rollercoaster.\u201d<\/p>\n

Second in the ranking of hail-mary climate approaches is to build a freezer to both cool down the existing ice and make more. Sadly, many ideas in this area forget that ice sheets are not just big blocks of immovable ice and are, in fact, liable to move. Take the idea of drilling down two miles or so into the ice sheet and pumping out the warm water to cool it down: Thanks to the constantly shifting ice and water, a new site would need to be drilled fairly regularly.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s another problem: The report says one project to bore a hole down 2.5km (1.5 miles) burned 450,000 liters of fuel. Not to mention how much energy it would consume to run the heat exchangers or freezers to create fresh ice on such a scale. That's a considerable amount of greenhouse gas pollution for a project meant to undo that exact type of damage. Dumping a layer of artificially-made snow on a mountain may work fine for a ski resort when the powder\u2019s a little thin, but not the whole planet.<\/p>\n

As hard as the scientific and engineering battles will be, there\u2019s also the political one that will need addressing. \u201cA lot of people get quasi-religiously upset about putting stuff into the stratosphere,\u201d said Professor John Moore, \u201cyou\u2019d think they\u2019d get similarly upset about greenhouse gasses.\u201d One strategy under consideration is to inject sulfur into the atmosphere to replicate the cooling effects observed after major volcanic eruptions. The sulfur would form SO2, creating thick layers of dense cloud to block more heat from reaching the ice. But if you, like me, have a high school-level knowledge of science, that\u2019s a scary prospect given that sulfur dioxide would resolve to sulfuric acid<\/em>. Given the microscopic quantities involved, there would be little-to-no impact on the natural world. But the image of acid rain pouring down from the clouds means it\u2019d be a hard sell to an uninformed population.<\/p>\n

But if there is a reason for concern, it\u2019s that any unintended consequences could pose a problem in the global political space. \u201cIt\u2019s almost like declaring war on the rest of the world if [a nation] goes it alone,\u201d says Phil Williamson, \u201cbecause any damage or alteration to the global climate system, the country that did it is responsible for all future climatic disasters because the weather isn\u2019t the same.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of course, Moore knows that the Frozen Arctic <\/em>report\u2019s conclusions aren\u2019t too optimistic about a quick fix. He feels its conclusions should serve as a wake-up call for the planet. \u201cNobody is going to scale up something for the entire arctic ocean overnight,\u201d he said, but that this is the time to \u201cfind ideas that might be valuable […] and then put resources into finding out if [those ideas] really are useful.\u201d He added that the short turnaround time before a total climate disaster isn\u2019t much of an issue, saying \u201cengineers can pretty much do anything you ask them to if you put enough resources into it.\u201d Because the alternative is to do nothing, and \u201cevery day that we choose to do nothing, we accept more of the damages that are coming.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"