Based on experience with making ice islands as drilling platforms, one can make ice by spraying water into the air. On already formed ice one need not spend the energy on spraying (formation of a mist is energy intensive); rather just pump water on to the surface. In my mind this would be the object of a small test. But where there is no existing ice sheet, one could speed its formation by spraying water into the air, a technique already used in making ice islands.
One commenter noted that ice formed at the bottom of an ice sheet is “fresh”, and this is correct: as water crystallizes a saltier and denser brine is formed that flows down into the ocean beneath the ice sheet. But we also know that salt water does freeze: this has been demonstrated on Arctic ice islands created by spraying, and by the icing on ships. We don’t know the details of this: does salt segregate as the water crystallizes? A wonderful question for a small test on a near shore ice sheet in the far north. If it is easy to incorporate air bubbles in ice, great, but it may not be needed: very thick ice islands were created as drilling platforms in one season. Peter Flynn *From:* [email protected] [mailto: [email protected]] *On Behalf Of *Nathan Currier *Sent:* June-19-13 11:09 PM *To:* [email protected] *Subject:* [geo] Re: Experiment Currently Taking Place in the Arctic? I tried to post this question last week, when Peter and Ron were discussing Peter's idea mentioned above, but the message didn't seem to go through - forgive me if it actually did, and I'm repeating myself. I mentioned an idea once to Mike, and I think at AMEG as well, and don't know enough to know whether it has in fact already been explored, might be feasible, etc - and that is, not thickening ice as per Peter's plan, but possibly creating more of it, through exploiting wind patterns' effect on sea ice creation. What I mean is this: relatively limited parts of the Laptev sea, in particular, function something like an ice factory for the whole arctic ocean (the Laptev altogether makes more sea ice than the Barents, Kara, East Siberian and Chukchi Seas combined). This is caused by strong winds that continually advect the new ice, so that there are features like the Great Siberian Polynya, that remain ice free, and this leads to the continuous creation of a great deal of ice there. It is particularly northerlies that blow from the coast about due north of Tiksi, covering not that big an area, that seem to make the largest of these polynyas. So, since what you need is increased wind right at the surface to drive this effect, could you design simple passive structures that would help concentrate the wind more down along the surface, making a kind of wind tunnel phenomenon, perhaps along 50-100 miles, and in this way increase the rate of advection, and hence creation of sea ice? All best, Nathan On Wednesday, June 19, 2013 7:09:33 PM UTC-4, Michael Hayes wrote: To Emily on ice additives, During the early years of WW2, there was a proposed for a mid atlantic iceberg as an airfield. They had a small one built in Canada. They used sawdust and did achieve year-round ice. Project Habakkuk "was a plan by the British <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Britain> in World War II<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II> to construct an aircraft carrier<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircraft_carrier> out of pykrete <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pykrete> (a mixture of wood pulp<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wood_pulp> and ice <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice>), for use against German U-boats<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U-boat> in the mid-Atlantic <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_Ocean>, which were beyond the flight range of land-based planes at that time.". I believe they did achieve year-round ice. The war ended as they were gearing up for a sea trial. Best, On Sunday, June 16, 2013 3:39:14 PM UTC-7, Josh Horton wrote: Hi everyone, Near the end of a recent, otherwise unremarkable story about geoengineering at RTCC (link below), Piers Forster from Leeds University is quoted as follows: “There is one experiment we’re currently undertaking – we’re trying to look at rescuing Arctic Ice by stimulating aeroplanes flying from Spitzbergen in Norway – and dump out a lot of Sulphur Dioxide, and we’re trying to look at that as a very short term protection against the loss of Arctic Ice." ( http://www.rtcc.org/scientists-warn-earth-cooling-proposals-are-no-climate-silver-bullet/ ) Does anyone know what he is talking about? Josh Horton [email protected] -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "geoengineering" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "geoengineering" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
