I wonder if anyone has thought about stopping the Pine Island Glacier by freezing it to bedrock?
What it would take is a number of thermal diodes. They were used on the Alaskan pipeline to keep it from sinking over areas of permafrost. All they are is a hole drilled to the bottom of the glacier, lined with a closed end pipe, a heat radiator on the top and a few gallons of propane or ammonia. The way they work is that when the air is colder than the bottom of the pipe, the liquid boils at the bottom, sucking out heat, vapors go up and liquid runs back down. The process stops when it is warmer on top than at the bottom. They are not very expensive, each one (over time) freezes a large area of the glacier to the underlying rock. A floating version can freeze a substantial block of ice out of seawater in the winter. I wonder if this would be considered geoengineering? Keith On Tue, Jan 14, 2014 at 2:31 PM, Ronal W. Larson <rongretlar...@comcast.net> wrote: > Greg etal > > Because this paper is behind a paywall, I can barely glean from their > figures that they may be looking at a fifty year time horizon. Did they > look at all at either SRM or CDR when using the term “irreversibility? > (quotes in the original - why?) > > Ron > > > On Jan 14, 2014, at 12:43 PM, Greg Rau <gh...@sbcglobal.net> wrote: > > http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2014/01/13-2 > Antarctic Glacier's 'Irreversible' Melting Threatens 'Considerable Increase' > to Sea Level Rise > New study on Pine Island Glacier shows 'striking vision of the near future,' > says co-author > - Andrea Germanos, staff writer > An Antarctic glacier is melting "irreversibly," offering "a striking vision > of the near future," a new study shows. > The study published Sunday in the journal Nature Climate Change looked at > Pine Island Glacier, the largest single contributor to sea-level rise in the > Antarctic. > The team of scientists used three ice flow models to look at the glacier's > grounding line, which separates the grounded ice sheet from the floating ice > shelf. > The grounding line, which has already retreated by about 10 kilometers in > the last decade, "is probably engaged in an unstable 40 kilometer retreat," > the study finds. > The glacier "has started a phase of self-sustained retreat and will > irreversibly continue its decline," said Gael Durand, a glaciologist with > France's Grenoble Alps University and study co-author. > Durand says the findings show "a striking vision of the near future. All the > models suggest that [the glacier's] recession will not stop, cannot be > reversed and that more ice will be transferred into the ocean.” > Agence France-Presse adds: > > A massive river of ice, the glacier by itself is responsible for 20 per cent > of total ice loss from the West Antarctic Ice Sheet today. > On average, it shed 20 billion tonnes of ice annually from 1992-2011, a loss > that is likely to increase up to and above 100 billion tonnes each year, > said the study. > > "The Pine Island Glacier shows the biggest changes in this area at the > moment, but if it is unstable it may have implications for the entire West > Antarctic Ice Sheet," Planet Earth Online reports study co-author G. Hilmar > Gudmundsson from the National Environment Research Council's British > Antarctic Survey as saying. > "Currently we see around two millimeters of sea level rise a year, and the > Pine Island Glacier retreat could contribute an additional 3.5 - 5 > millimeters in the next twenty years, so it would lead to a considerable > increase from this area alone. But the potential is much larger," > Gudmundsson warned. > > -- > 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 geoengineering+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > To post to this group, send email to geoengineering@googlegroups.com. > 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 geoengineering+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > To post to this group, send email to geoengineering@googlegroups.com. > 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 geoengineering+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to geoengineering@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
