Making glaciers stick to the bedrock would, at first glance, seem to be a great way to rebuild ice caps/sheets. If flow from eg PIG could be blocked/slowed, that would have a significant effect on the ice above. A potentially risk is of catastrophic failure - if a CO2 based glacier suddenly snaps off, will it rebind - or will it just dump the whole ice sheet into the ocean?
A On Mon, 6 Aug 2018, 10:39 David Sevier, <david.sev...@carbon-cycle.co.uk> wrote: > It might be possible to change the flow dynamics of glaciers forming > carbon dioxide clathrates at the bottom of the glacier by carbon dioxide > injection under specific conditions. Carbon dioxide clathrates melt at 80C > which is above the temperature of the glacial melt water. The clathrates > require energy input to reverse back to water and carbon dioxide. Klaus and > I looked at storing CO2 in glaciers a number of years ago. We were thinking > about capturing CO2 from the air and sticking it in the glaciers. Storing > CO2 in glaciers could be a very large CO2 store if done correctly and in > the right place. I talked to number of glacier experts at the time who made > the connection that done right, the formed clathrates which are heavier > than ice would migrate to the bottom of the glacier and act to stick the > glacier to the bedrock. They mused that this would change the flow dynamics > of the glacier but as we did not do further work on storing CO2 in > glaciers, no one looked at this properly. It would probably work to hold > back the glacier and could be used to store quite a lot of CO2 but only for > time frames below 10,000 years (this said, some ices of the Eastern > Antarctica Glacier are over 1 million years old). I would point out that > without proper modelling, this is speculation at best. An individual > glacier system would have to be modelled to get a more realistic idea if > this would work or not. It is possible that sticking the bottom of the > glacier to the bed rock could have unforeseen and worse impacts than doing > nothing. > > > > > > David Sevier > > Carbon Cycle Limited > > 248 Sutton Common Road > > Sutton, Surrey SM3 9PW > > England > > Tel 44 (0)208 288 0128 > > Fax 44 (0)208-288 0129 > > www.carbon-cycle.co.uk > > > > This email is private and confidential > > > > > > > > > -- 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 https://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
