Arctic geoengineering: Difference between revisions
(→Sea ice demolition by ice chipping: rm: article is junk) |
(→Ice chipping: rm: trash) |
||
| Line 154: | Line 154: | ||
Thickening ice by spraying seawater onto existing ice has been proposed.<ref>http://www.popsci.com/node/9444</ref> Sea ice is an effective [[thermal insulator]], and thus freezing takes place much more rapidly on the top surface of the ice sheet than on the bottom. Thicker sea ice is more structurally stable, and is more resistant to melting due to its increased mass. An additional benefit of this method is that the increased salt content of the melting ice will tend to strengthen downwelling currents when the ice re-melts.<ref>http://www.springerlink.com/content/pt637l16gt5r7023/?p=ca10f32f85f248af9024dd6238772907&pi=2</ref> |
Thickening ice by spraying seawater onto existing ice has been proposed.<ref>http://www.popsci.com/node/9444</ref> Sea ice is an effective [[thermal insulator]], and thus freezing takes place much more rapidly on the top surface of the ice sheet than on the bottom. Thicker sea ice is more structurally stable, and is more resistant to melting due to its increased mass. An additional benefit of this method is that the increased salt content of the melting ice will tend to strengthen downwelling currents when the ice re-melts.<ref>http://www.springerlink.com/content/pt637l16gt5r7023/?p=ca10f32f85f248af9024dd6238772907&pi=2</ref> |
||
====Ice chipping==== |
|||
Sea ice creation by ice chipping has been planned by Finland-based Atmosmare Foundation<ref name="ATMOSMARE">{{cite web |
|||
| last = |
|||
| first = |
|||
| authorlink = |
|||
| coauthors = |
|||
| title = ATMOSMARE - JOTTA PALLO PYSYISI VIILE�N�. |
|||
| work = |
|||
| publisher = |
|||
| date = |
|||
| url = http://www.atmosmare.com |
|||
| format = Not in English |
|||
| doi = |
|||
| accessdate =2009-01-02 }} |
|||
</ref> who have recently made tentative agreement to purchase an ice-breaker from Canada, the project awaiting operational funds to run the ice breaking vessel to carry out sea ice creation by ice chipping and other various forms of geoengineering. <ref>{{cite web |
|||
| last = |
|||
| first = |
|||
| authorlink = |
|||
| coauthors = |
|||
| title = ATMOSMARE - JOTTA PALLO PYSYISI VIILE�N�. |
|||
| work = |
|||
| publisher = |
|||
| date = |
|||
| url = http://www.atmosmare.com/arktisen_alueen_toimet.shtml |
|||
| format = Not in English |
|||
| doi = |
|||
| accessdate =2009-01-02 }} |
|||
</ref> |
|||
A suitable time for sea ice creation by ice chipping is late autumn when there are greatly reduced amount of sunlight, cooling weathers and the sea water is sufficiently cooled not to melt the chipped (loosened) sea ice where the onset of new ice is desired. The ice breaking route follows areas on near the periphery of the newly formed or old solid ice in repeated manoeuvres to create multiple cuts parallel to the direction where the wind and sea current carry over such a loosened sea ice. |
|||
The winds must be towards the sufficiently cold areas on the ocean where sea ice formation (growth) is possible and desired. To be successful, the ice formation must also occur fast enough so that the loosened ice has little time drifting backwards or get clustered as a pack ice before enough ice growth occurs around the chipped ice. Ice chipping for sea ice creation induces sea ice stretching by pacifying the sea behind the loosened ice and facilitating the growth of new ice in the leads behind or around the loosened ice floes themselves depending how the ice chipping is executed. The lower the air and sea water temperatures and the stronger the sea currents or wind drift are, the more successful is the ice creation from ice chipping. |
|||
The sea ice creation by ice chipping method uses the same processes in the Arctic Ocean that naturally occurs around the Antarctic continent on the Southern Ocean when its strong sea currents and cold breezes naturally facilitate extremely rapid advance of sea ice edge to the north during the onset of the Antarctic autumn and winter season.<ref>{{Citation |
|||
| last = Rintoul |
|||
| first = Stephen R. |
|||
| author-link = |
|||
| last2 = |
|||
| first2 =Serguei Sokolov, Robert A. Massom |
|||
| author2-link = |
|||
| title =Giant icy tongue: Rapid development and persistence of a massive Antarctic sea ice tongue |
|||
| journal = Journal of Geophysical Research 60 Seconds, New Scientist |
|||
| volume = |
|||
| issue = 2662 |
|||
| pages = |
|||
| date = 25 June 2008 |
|||
| year = |
|||
| url = http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19826624.000-60-seconds.html |
|||
| doi = 10.1029/2007JC004541 |
|||
| id = }} |
|||
</ref>. Veli Albert Kallio of the Frozen Istmuses’ Protection Campaign of the Arctic and North Atlantic Oceans (FIPC) has developed the reverse engineering application from FESCO’s sea ice demolition programme based on its ice chipping using above principles from the Antarctica to be tested and refined by Athmosmare Foundation and their principal geoenginering researcher Risto Isomaki for the Arctic Ocean. During strong Arctic autumn and winter storms that blow ice towards open part of the Arctic Ocean the edge of sea ice is cut to create artificial leads, and sea ice breakage to create ice floes that then drift in favourable winds to the open parts of the Arctic Ocean to grow there whilst the leads cur refreeze. Thus the ice should be strechable like the Antarctic sea ice if the air temperature, wind and sea water temperature are favourable which in all likelihood should help bringing a faster (earlier) growth of sea ice also in the Arctic. |
|||
==Stratospheric sulfur aerosols== |
==Stratospheric sulfur aerosols== |
||
Revision as of 23:51, 22 February 2009
Several geoengineering proposals have been made which are specific to the Arctic. They are usually hydrological in nature, and principally centre upon measures to prevent Arctic Ice Loss. Preventing such ice loss is important for climate control, as the Arctic Ice regulates global temperatures by virtue of its albedo - its white reflectivity, and also by restraining methane emissions from permafrost near the shoreline in the Arctic region.[1][2] Additionally, the sea ice has a wider regional climatic role, and acts to maintain permafrost more generally in the region, by insulating the cold winter winds from the warm sea.[3]
Building thicker sea ice
It has been proposed to actively enhance the polar ice cap by spraying or pumping water onto the top of it which would build thicker sea ice.[4][5] As ice is an insulator, water on the surface of the ice tends to freeze more quickly than that below. River water could be used for this purpose, as salt water tends to resist freezing, and may end up perforating the resulting ice sheet.
St. Lawrence Dam
The St. Lawrence Dam has been proposed by Rolf Schuttenhelm with the purpose to decrease salinity and temperature in the Arctic Ocean, slow down albedo and methane feedbacks.[6]
Sea ice and iceberg restraint
Suspension cabling and floating locks that prevent southward sea ice movements through the straights in Canadian archipelago, the Nares Strait between Greenland and Ellesmere Island, the straights between the Svalbard archipelago, the Franz Joseph Land archipelago and the coast of Russia. These mechanisms let sea ice to move northwards (where the air is cooler and there is less insolation) and then lock up whenever ice bearing current turns southward (as there is more sunshine and heat in the south) or when the wind or currents carry thick sea ice towards shipping lanes or other off-shore installations like oil rigs and gas rigs.[citation needed]
Risto Isomäki of Atmosmare Foundation[7], Finland has proposed a forced containment of ice bergs in ice fjords i.e. Ilulissat ice fjord[8], or other enclosures, or iceberg towing to slow down ice berg melting. Forced ice berg containment produces a problematic, perennially growing storage of icebergs that can interfere transportation and sea access, i.e. Ilulissat. This may render such efforts impractical as more ice bergs accummulate into the enclosure. If iceberg restraints, cabling or locks, in the ice fjords (or ice streams above) can be devised to slow down flows, this would probably be beneficial as the amount of water discharged to the oceans is thus reduced. However, if any escalation in ice berg calving (i.e. in Greenland) is a mere symptom that results from an increase in ice sheet's internal ice pressure, then a loss of ice bergs might act as a useful pressure release valve in prevention of a runaway pressure build-up reaching a major pressure tipping point. However, there is lack of evidence that melting ice sheets do have an ultimate tipping point where a pressure build-up within the wet and destabilised ice sheet could reach such a tipping point where the entire ice sheet starts breaking itself free by failing its coastal periphery in some weak point. (The present ice domes i.e. Greenland's South and North Ice Domes are encased in elevated terrain around by their coastal margins while many pre-historic ones have major gaps in their outer periphery barrier, i.e. the Kara Sea, the Hudson Bay). In that case, any benefit from a forced ice berg containment would be short-lived, if the ice sheet land containment failure tipping point is brought forward by a forced reduction in ice flows and weight removal from the ice sheet.
Other suggestions have also been made on restraining icebergs[9]
Ice sheet draining
Ice sheets can be destabilised by the presence of water between the ice and the rock base.[10] Arctic Explorer David de Rothschild from Sculpt the Future, UK has proposed geoengineering scheme to actively pump water out from under (or pockets from within ice sheet) in order to stabilise the ice mass (or remove heat and the fallen meltwater that can stay accummulated within ice cavities and fissures). Until recently, moulins were mostly formed near the edge of Greenland's ice sheet draining their water quickly from ice back to the sea when the melting season ends.[11][12] The seasonal impact moulins that drain themselves fast deserve little attention as their heat effect is not accummulative. However, the melting inreasingly occurs further inland where Greenland's ice sheet has a subglacial topography to take meltwater (and heat in it) inwards, towards subglacial, subsided Greenland interior. These accummulative impact moulins build up a growing layers (or pockets) of water under (or within the ice) that benefit from draining operations to remove meltwater and its heating from within the ice, or, improve the hold of ice sheet against ground as water pools are pumped away and ice rests back onto rough rock terrain rather than floating frictionlessly on meltwater pools. The impact of Greenland's interior moulins is the ultimate greenhouse effect in action as the thick ice is a very good insulator to keep heat trapped almost indefinitely once the melt water and heat in it has fallen under or within the ice sheet through these accummulative impact moulins that can only be remedied by artificial draining.
Sea ice creation
Sea Water Spraying
Thickening ice by spraying seawater onto existing ice has been proposed.[13] Sea ice is an effective thermal insulator, and thus freezing takes place much more rapidly on the top surface of the ice sheet than on the bottom. Thicker sea ice is more structurally stable, and is more resistant to melting due to its increased mass. An additional benefit of this method is that the increased salt content of the melting ice will tend to strengthen downwelling currents when the ice re-melts.[14]
Stratospheric sulfur aerosols
Ken Caldeira et al analysed the effect of geoengineering in the Arctic using Stratospheric sulfur aerosols[15]
See also
- Geological Engineering
- Geological and geophysical engineering
- Environmental geology
- Exploration geophysics
- Engineering geology
References
- ^ Connor, Steve (Tuesday, 23 September 2008). "Exclusive: The methane time bomb - Climate Change, Environment - The Independent". Arctic scientists discover new global warming threat as melting permafrost releases millions of tons of a gas 20 times more damaging than carbon dioxide. independent.co.uk. Retrieved 2009-01-02.
{{cite news}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^ "TerraNature". Melting permafrost methane emissions: The other threat to climate change. TerraNature Trust. 15 September 2006. Retrieved 2009-01-02.
{{cite news}}: Text "Methane from melting Siberian permafrost" ignored (help) - ^ ACIA, Cambridge University Press, Arctic Climate Impact Assessment, Jim Berner, Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (2005). Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (Digitized online by Google books). Cambridge University Press. pp. 216–217. ISBN 0521865093, 9780521865098. Retrieved 2008-01-02.
{{cite book}}: Check|isbn=value: invalid character (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - ^ "Thousands of barges could save Europe from deep freeze". It is ironic that one consequence of global warming is that Europe might plunge into a deep freeze. This possibility stimulated an unusual research project at the University of Alberta. PhysOrg.com. February 6th, 2006. Retrieved 2009-01-02.
{{cite news}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^ Watts, Robert G. (1997). "Cryospheric processes". Engineering Response to Global Climate Change: Planning a Research and Development Agenda (Digitized online by Googlebooks). CRC Press. p. 419. ISBN 1566702348, 9781566702348. Retrieved 2009-01-02.
{{cite book}}: Check|isbn=value: invalid character (help) - ^ Schuttenhelm, Rolf (full publication: September 13th 2008 press release: September 15th 2008). "Diomede Crossroads - Saving the North Pole? Motivation" (pdf). Retrieved 2009-01-02.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^ Cite error: The named reference
ATMOSMAREwas invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ interview by: Ilkka Karisto, photos: Perttu Saksa, Helsingin Sanomat. ""Risto Isomäki yrittää pelastaa maailman"" (Not in English). Kuukausiliite. Retrieved 2009-01-02.
{{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|coauthors=(help) - ^ Karisto, Ilkka (1.8.2008 1). "Risto Isomäki yrittää pelastaa maailman - HS.fi" (Not in English). Helsingin Sanomat. Retrieved 2009-01-02.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^ Zwally, H. Jay (12 JULY 2002), "Surface Melt-Induced Acceleration of Greenland Ice-Sheet Flow" (PDF), SCIENCE www.sciencemag.org (VOL 297): 218
{{citation}}:|first2=missing|last2=(help); Check date values in:|date=(help); line feed character in|first2=at position 31 (help) by Zwally et.al - ^ Lubin, Dan (2006). Polar Remote Sensing: Ice Sheets (Digitized online by googlebooks). Birkhäuser. p. 176. ISBN 354026101X, 9783540261018. Retrieved 2009-01-02.
{{cite book}}: Check|isbn=value: invalid character (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter:|coauthors=(help); Unknown parameter|firstn=ignored (help) - ^ Knight, Peter G. (1999). Glaciers (Digitized online by googlebooks). Routledge. pp. 72–73. ISBN 0748740007, 9780748740000. Retrieved 2009-01-02.
{{cite book}}: Check|isbn=value: invalid character (help) - ^ http://www.popsci.com/node/9444
- ^ http://www.springerlink.com/content/pt637l16gt5r7023/?p=ca10f32f85f248af9024dd6238772907&pi=2
- ^ http://journals.royalsociety.org/content/84j11614488142u8/