Using Barges to Fight Global Warming

An anonymous reader writes "Dr. Peter Flynn, Poole Chair in Management for Engineers in the University of Alberta Department of Mechanical Engineering, has developed what he would like to consider a fall back plan to help combat the effects of global warming, in northern Europe. Flynn proposes using 'more than 8,000 barges moving into the northern ocean in the fall, speeding the initial formation of sea ice by pumping a spray of water into the air, and then, once the ice is formed, pumping ocean water on top of it, trapping the salt in the ice and reaching a thickness of seven meters. In the spring, water would continue to be pumped over the ice to melt it, forming a vast amount of cold, salty water that sinks and adds to the down-welling current to re-strengthen it.'"

Comments

Quick interview on CBC

[Mrs. Grundy]

Whatever the virtues may or may not be in micromanaging an incompletely understood global chaotic system by adding further human input, you all might be interested in hearing it from the horse's mouth. In this radio interview. (scroll down for links) the good doctor makes the point that he is not advocating doing this now, but rather studying the possibility in the case that we find ourselves in an emergency situation where the currents get out of whack and crazy things, like the freezing of the Thames, start happening.

Re:Hack?

[belrick]

The estimated cost is about $50 billion.

Wouldn't be better to spend this tiny amount of money with measures to prevent and control the emission of CO2 at the atmosphere? This barges things looks like a hack to me... a really expensive hack. Would this have to be done every year? I think it is better to leave this kind of "ultimate" solution to when there is no option at all. Until then, let's try to fight the roots of the problem, not just patch it from the outside and adjourn the disaster for a few years.

If you researched the research, you would understand that they are not proposing this (at this time) as a solution, rather they are doing calculations to understand what it would cost to fix the problem (in this case the broken circulation of ocean water) after the fact. That is useful to be able to compare costs with those preventative measures you refer to.

Re:Hack?

[Martin Blank]

Coal seam fires are regularly extinguished. It's difficult and expensive, but the value of the coal burned is higher than the cost of extinguishing it -- and that's in the US, which has centuries of coal remaining to be mined.

There's no reason that many of the coal seam fires in China could not be extinguished, other than that China does not care to spend the money on it.

Fe fertilizer -8B tons C, Fossil fuels +4B tons C

[MacDork]

this article says, it's not clear that small quantities of iron will do the trick.

I'll see your five year old national geographic fluff piece, and raise you a two year old government study.

simulations of iron fertilization of the oceans in the Southern Hemisphere initially showed that almost 8 billion tons of carbon would be absorbed by the ocean each year. Yet, after 500 years of continuous fertilization, the net increase in absorption would be less than 1 billion tons of carbon per year.

Now, considering that fossil fuels contribute roughly 4-5 billion tons of C to the atmosphere annually, and we've got about 100 years of fossil fuels left... How in the hell is this not a perfect solution? Oh yeah, that's right... too many global warming chicken littles out there are going to have egg on their face if atmospheric C is reduced to pre-industrial levels and global temps are still rising thanks to the simple fact that the sun is getting hotter. We wouldn't want to actually test that "greenhouse gases cause global warming" theory, now would we? Better just stick to those computer models...

Oh no! I'm challenging global warming rhetoric with scientific studies! Damn!! There goes my Karma! *sniff* Goodbye sweet Karma <sarcasm />

Re:Sounds like Brewster's Millions...

[arkhan_jg]

Because he's not suggesting this as a 'fix' to the albedo, but a way to provide a big stream of cold salty water at the north end of the global conveyer. Why go to all that trouble?

The global conveyer transports hot water from the equator to and western coast of europe, including the UK, keeping that part of europe warmer and more temperate than it's latitude would otherwise make it. The warm water cools, drops down, and returns in a reverse current going south. Too much fresh water at the northern end of the conveyer, from melting fresh water ice at the pole, and russian rivers, dilutes that heavy salty water, and weakens (and could eventually stop) the return trip of the conveyer. The conveyer weakens or even dies, and the UK gets a lot colder, causing all sorts of problems. This 'fix' would strengthen or even restart the conveyer. The 50 billion gives you an idea of how much it might cost us in the medium term if we ignore global warming, just to 'fix' one part of the problem.

Hopefully, politicians will look at this idea, not as something to do now, but something to convince themselves to do something about global warming (i.e. CO2 and methane emissions) before we have to start planning on projects like this. There's a good chance that the global conveyer shutting down will happen in my or my children's lifetime if we do nothing, and I'd rather not have to seriously face a plan like this.