Yes, The Ice on Greenland and the Antarctic Is Melting. Now What?
The defense against sea-level rise stemming from the melting ice in Greenland and the Antarctic is clearly going to be an important component of our civilization’s attempt to stave off the catastrophe that our scientists are telling us is headed our way. Moreover, seawalls are definitely going to play an important role in making this happen. But building such structures around these massive areas of melting ice? Here’s a piece from Yale University on that very subject.
Craig,
“stave off the catastrophe that our scientists are telling us is headed our way”.
Um,… don’t want be picky, but what exactly do you mean by “our” scientists” ?
Do you mean these are scientists in your employ? (seems unlikely). Maybe some organization you have omitted naming, maybe “our” as being the Santa Barbara political alarmist collective ?
Don’t really expect an answer, just curious……
Here is the first of the 226 million responses to Googling: “world scientists warning to humanity 2018.”
http://scientistswarning.forestry.oregonstate.edu/
Craig,
” Curiouser and curiouser, said Alice”…… I googled “world scientists warning to humanity 2018”, but google listed only got only 184,000,000 responses ! (an approx 20% difference). Not that it’s important and I’m surprised you think it relevant. (google responses are only indicative of word structure association).
My question was about your proprietorial use of the term “our” in “our scientists”. A question you haven’t addressed.
However, I do thank you for directing me to the important sounding ‘Alliance of World Scientists’.
Hmmmm,… this august organization doesn’t seem to actually exist outside of a fairly anonymous and vague blog site by Bill Ripple of the Department of Forest Ecosystems and Ecology at Oregon State University.
I may be wrong, but since the website provides no other details as to the nature, officers or structure of the organization, it appears this is a sort of, undoubtedly well meaning, but vague organization created for the sole purpose of endorsing and giving authenticity to Union of Concerned Scientists predictions.
It sounds great to claim, “Well it (*insert any assertion*) was endorsed by the ‘Alliance of World Scientists’, as if that was an established and august body, instead of just one obscure university academic with a self created title !
Which brings me back to your partisan use of the term “our”.
I realize you are attempting to imply a collegiate, united consensus opinion of every scientist (or person who claims to be a scientist), and by using the the term “our” you are implying the human race, but that’s just not true, and you know it.
Even among ‘concerned’ scientists there is a wide disparity of opinion, especially in recent years.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying Dr Ripple is intentionally dishonest or insincere, but just it pays to look a little deeper int the methodology before accepting assertions.
But, thanks for the reply.
It’s great that they’re trying to help! If we don’t do anything we definitely won’t stand a chance against Global Warming. saving the world is a team effort, a=we all need to contribute if we want something to happen.
Sorry Craig, but like most geoengineering ideas, this completely fails the feasibility test. Any form of sea-based building concept in the waters around either Antarctica or Greenland is a complete non-starter.
It’s engineering on a non-physical coordinate grid. Sure, such an idea will reduce the calving rate of the ice sheets. But it would require a fleet of millions of super-massive icebreaker ships and even with the icebreakers could only be conducted for a few months out of the year.
I do consider there to be exactly one semi-plausible means of geoengineering ice sheet growth as a means of offsetting sea level rise.
By semi-plausible, I don’t mean that it would actually be economically feasible. I mean that one would have to really run the numbers and give it honest consideration before dismissing it out-of-hand. That would be to line the northeastern shore of Baffin Island, the eastern shore of Beechey Island, and the southeastern shore of Ellsemere Island with nuclear power plants (at least 1 per 100 km), desalination plants (at least 1 per 10 km), and tens of thousands of clusters of ultra-high pressure, high capacity spray nozzles oriented in clusters of 4 – each cluster having the four nozzles aimed so that the streams collide at a central point (insert unrelated but funny Ghostbusters reference here). This would force water to collide at extremely high energy, resulting in high-energy vaporization and extremely ultra-fine mist to be borne aloft by the upward lift of high energy vapor. Essentially you’d be making clouds over all of Baffin bay, which would be driven over the Greenland Ice Sheet, the Greenland Sea, and the Arctic Ocean north of Greenland.
Assuming that this operation began at the beginning of the melt season in late April every year, and continued through September… it would reduce the amount of solar energy striking the Ice Sheet and the surrounding sea ice during the summer day, and it would continuously coat those surfaces with fresh snowfall, dramatically increasing their albedo for the sunlight that does break through.
That, combined with the deep refreeze during the winter and the continuance of the usual influx of moisture during the year should result in a net increase of hundreds of billions of tons of frozen water across the GIS every year, perhaps even trillions of tons per year.
It would do nothing to stop the rest of the warming, but it would pack away as much fresh water as the melting Antarctic would release – at least for half a century or so.
Again, is that cost effective verses just building sea walls and dredging/building up the land around coastal/low-lying cities and retreating strategically? I don’t know.
I do know that that is the only option to halt or reverse sea level rise that I’ve seen that is not simply farcical. The Yale suggestion of building walls around the glaciers I would include as a farcical proposition. It just cannot be done with anything close to economic viability… not by orders of magnitude.
Note, I haven’t run the numbers for the above and given it honest consideration because the scope of such a thing – in both comparitive cases – is simply too vast and too uncertain. It would take minds far more sophisticated than mine months to delve into that to yield something of a fair assessment. So I just presented it as I understand it, and say “this doesn’t sound completely insane to me, unlike the rest of the stuff out there”.
I thought it was absurd too, but I thought I’d write a post on it since it came from a good source.
Craig,
Meanwhile. back in the real world where things are actually occurring, far more important events are taking place.
The long awaited report ordered from the National Coal Council (NCC), a Federal Advisory Committee established under the authority of the U.S. Department of Energy, has finally been released.
The 60 page report entitled, ” Power Reset: Optimizing the Existing U.S. Coal Fleet
to Ensure a Reliable and Resilient Power Grid”,
[ https://www.nationalcoalcouncil.org/studies/2018/NCC-Power-Reset-2018.pdf ]
isn’t a light read, and needs considerable analysis.
Naturally, the document is to a certain extent biased in favour of the Coal Industry, but the information contained can’t be easily dismissed or refuted.
It remains an important source of reference into the US coal industry and contains world wide ramifications.
For those wishing to understand or research the US energy market, US energy dynamics, policies or simply acquiring a more comprehensive knowledge of the complexities involved in energy demand and supply, the document is an important reference source of data and information.
After the US mid-term elections it’s almost certain a debate will take place around tax incentives in the form of power generation reliability and resiliency credits and other similar programs aimed at increasing the viability of coal, and bolstering investment in new coal technology.
Reading and understanding this report will be essential for both those opposed to coal electricity generation, proponents of the coal industry and the undecided if they wish to be heard with any authority of credibility.
Like most reports, rapid advances in technology can make report like this out of date before the ink is dry, but this report does provide a great deal of information which will remain valuable for at least a decade.