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Mongolia Wants To Use Artificial Glaciers To Cool Capital
phaedrus5001 wrote in with a story about an unusual plan to regulate the temperature of Ulan Bator, the capital city of Mongolia. The article reads: "The city of Ulan Bator will attempt to capture some of the cool winter temperatures in huge ice blocks that will slowly melt over the summer and cool down the city. The aim is to build artificial ice shields — or 'naleds' — that occur naturally in far northern climates and can grow to be more than seven meters thick. They grow when river water pushes through cracks in the surface of the ice during the day and then freezes to add an extra layer of ice when night falls. Engineering consortium EMI-ECOS will try to replicate this process by creating holes in the ice that is forming over the Tuul river. This will be repeated over and over again until the ice is much thicker than it would be if left alone."
"Solving the global warming problem once and for all!"
"But..."
"Once and for all!"
It's basically the same climate as Winnipeg, and we use air conditioning for a good chunk of the summer. the average high is around 20C, but that's because it alternates between 10C and 30C through most of the summer. Also, northern towns just aren't equipped to deal with heat waves - nobody has swimming pools, and only about 70% of homes have air conditioning. If the temperature is over 35C, pretty much everything shuts down. On the other hand, throw us a week of -40, or a foot of snow and it's life as usual.
They use a similar technique to cool the Kidd Creek mine: http://blogs.agu.org/martianchronicles/2011/08/01/9800-feet/
"We learned during the mine briefing video that part of the cooling system actually involves opening up huge caverns near the surface during the winter and forcing the bitter cold air through while spraying water. This coats the tunnels in thick layers of ice. Then, during the summer, air is passed through these cavernous iceboxes before being sent down to the bottom of the mine."