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The problem is clear: The glaciers of the world founded, causing the increase in sea level.
As global temperatures hover due to the continuous influx of greenhouse gases trapped in the earth’s atmosphere, melted glaciers add more water to the oceans. Sea level should encroach on the coasts, affecting communities and ecosystems. Accordingly Climate change caused by humansThe world’s elevation world rates have been unprecedented in the past 2,500 years.
A flood of fresh water in the ocean would also affect the ocean currents, which depend on a delicate balance of salinity, density and temperature to bomb and regulate the climate of the earth.
To respond to these concerns, scientists develop attenuation and adaptation strategies which, according to them, could help save us and glaciers – large ice and snow leaves found on all continents except in Australia – worsening of impacts. But, at the moment, these measures are largely theoretical.
“Just as many humans take supplements to counter the loss of bone mass after a certain age, there may be low -cost methods, low impact and logistically to counter the loss of mass of glacial caps,” said the Dr Ken Mankoff, Main scientific programmer at New York Nasa Goddard Institute for Space Studies, told The independent By email Thursday. “It’s worth exploring if possible.”
Oceanic heat blockage
An approach would be to prevent hot water from the ocean from flowing under the antarctic ice shelves Use of giant curtains or underwater dikes to hold it back.
However, what the curtains are done exactly must still be determined. Scientists said Grist Last year, they could potentially use air as a barrier, pumping it from a hole drill.
Glacier friction control
A second idea is to increase the friction between the glaciers and the rock which is below their ice in order to slow them down, because they naturally start to slide or descend under the pressure of their own weight.
This strategy would pump water in or out of the cracks between the ice and the rocky crust of the earth to control this friction and potentially slow down the movement of a glacier.
Thickening
A third method shared by Douglas Macayeal, professor emeritus of the Department of Geophysical Sciences at the University of Chicago, is to pump water on parts of the Antarctic ice cap in winter.
The water would then freeze and thicken the ice to the point where it would also increase friction, which makes the ice so thick that they cannot even move on the berries.
He explained that the different proposals on the table are based on our understanding of how glaciers in Antarctica and Greenland naturally change, while they move in response to gravitational and stress forces. However, scientists do not yet know if these ideas would be enough to stop the melting of something like the “Doomsday” glacier thwaite. This only glacier is responsible for approximately one percent of the world level of sea level.
“Could we really do that?” he wondered. “Even if we know that other glaciers have been arrested in the past by changing water in their bed or by the fact that there are different oceanographic heat flows to their earthen lines.”
Oceanic heat blocking interventions – including the curtain or the dike – have the most research, Dr. Michael Wolovick, a postdoctoral researcher at the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research, by e -mail. He believes they are “probably the most likely to be effective”.
“Interventions of whole planets such as the injection of stratospheric aerosols would also benefit the glacial caps, although they would probably have a greater immediate impact on Greenland than Antarctica, because Greenland loses more mass in the melting Surface at present, “he noted.
Sulfate aerosol injections
Aerosol injectionsSulfur compounds particles in the air like a volcano can lower the temperature of the earth, reflecting solar radiation. However, the broader implications of this plan are worrying.
But while theories are abundant in glacial engineering, making it a reality would prove difficult.
It would take decades to perform the necessary measures to understand what it would really take to perform such interventions, Slawek Tulaczyk, a glaciologist at UC Santa Cruz, and Wolovick both stressed.
“It is important to keep in mind that we still have a lot of uncertainty, but despite this uncertainty, we must still make decisions and act,” said Wolovick.
Glaciers should undergo major changes in the coming decades. Two -thirds of the glaciers should disappear by 2100, according to a 2023 study Published in the journal Science. More than 400 billion tonnes of ice have already been lost Since the mid -1990s.
But for some scientists, these long -term projects include risks – including potential climate impacts – which are not worth taking.
“They tend to be very difficult to evolve. They often involve extensive resources and additional emissions themselves, “said Dr. Twila Moon, main scientist and scientific communication link to the National Snow and Ice Data Center. “Many of them are likely to have involuntary consequences for the environment or can even change ice, whether the surface of the glacier or sea ice, in a way that can really exacerbate the problem. »»
Moon cited the end of the non -profit arctic ice project that experienced the use of silica beads to slow down the melting of ice in the Arctic. The tests revealed that the plan had “The potential risks for the Arctic Food Chain”, “ But the group blamed a “broad skepticism towards geo-engineering” for its decision to close.
“And, I think that for me and a lot in the scientific community of glaciology, we would really like to see people focus on attenuation and successful adaptation,” said Moon.
Jeremy Bassis, professor at the University of Michigan, said The independent That he believes that geo-engineering “will never play a significant role in the context of a climatic solution”.
He compared it to take an analgesic for a plan without a plan to see a dentist.
“So, if we do not answer the underlying cause of sea level elevation, there is nothing geo-engineering, that we can do that will stop the elevation of sea level” , he said.
Macayeal heard criticism of the field, which, according to him, is at a crossroads. He stressed that the objective is, in no case designed to provide an excuse so that anyone who does not consider the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions as the first way that humans can advance a better future.
“Even if, the idea that if we develop knowledge of glacial geoengineering, it will be a deterrence for a new reduction in emissions. This is one of the main criticisms of any geo-engineering, “said Macyeal.
“I do not know how to respond to this criticism other than … in my intestinal feeling, knowledge is better than ignorance. And, perhaps if we do not limit climate change, we may have to use some of these things, “he said.