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Massive Undersea Walls Could Stop Glaciers From Melting, Scientists Say (cnn.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNN: Building walls on the seafloor could prevent glaciers from melting and sea levels rising due to global warming, scientists say. Barriers of sand and rock positioned at the base of glaciers would stop ice sheets sliding and collapsing, and prevent warm water from eroding the ice from beneath, according to research published this week in the Cryosphere journal, from the European Geosciences Union. The audacious idea centers on the construction of "extremely simple structures, merely piles of aggregate on the ocean floor, although more advanced structures could certainly be explored in the future," said the report's authors, Michael Wolovick, a researcher at the department of geosciences at Princeton University, and John Moore, professor of climate change at the University of Lapland in Finland.
Using computer models to gauge the probable impact of walls on erosion of the Thwaites glacier in Antarctica, one of the world's largest, Wolovick and Moore hoped to test the efficiency of "a locally targeted intervention." They claimed the simplest designs would allow direct comparison with existing engineering projects. "The easiest design that we considered would be comparable to the largest civil engineering projects that humanity has ever attempted," they said. "An ice sheet intervention today would be at the edge of human capabilities." For example, building four isolated walls would require between 0.1 and 1.5 cubic km of material. "That is comparable to the 0.1 km3 that was used to create Palm Jumeirah in Dubai ($12 billion)...(and) the 0.3 km3 that was used to create Hong Kong International Airport ($20 billion)," the report said. The authors say there's only a 30% probability of success due to the harsh environment, but did mention that the scientific community could work on a plan that was both achievable and had a high probability of success.
Using computer models to gauge the probable impact of walls on erosion of the Thwaites glacier in Antarctica, one of the world's largest, Wolovick and Moore hoped to test the efficiency of "a locally targeted intervention." They claimed the simplest designs would allow direct comparison with existing engineering projects. "The easiest design that we considered would be comparable to the largest civil engineering projects that humanity has ever attempted," they said. "An ice sheet intervention today would be at the edge of human capabilities." For example, building four isolated walls would require between 0.1 and 1.5 cubic km of material. "That is comparable to the 0.1 km3 that was used to create Palm Jumeirah in Dubai ($12 billion)...(and) the 0.3 km3 that was used to create Hong Kong International Airport ($20 billion)," the report said. The authors say there's only a 30% probability of success due to the harsh environment, but did mention that the scientific community could work on a plan that was both achievable and had a high probability of success.
And make big fossil corporations pay for it!
Yeah right, those greedy GOP-whore-renting pricks doing something good for the world? Not except by force.
The melting glaciers are absorbing heat energy as they melt. If you stop them from melting then they stop absorbing heat and it would likely just cause the earth to heat up faster.
Not necessarily a bad thing though as a faster rise in temperature would hopefully make more people take global warming seriously and you still would have the buffer available if things got really bad.
There's no money for this while we rebuild North Carolina which is now in the path of a new hurricane zone, which happens to be a Republican stronghold. Sorry.
Although it sounds like maybe this could work, what about the sea life of Antartica that might rely on that particular niche to live?
Besides the ice shelves holding back the glaciers are not melting underneath like scientists thought they would, so I think we need to understand better what is really going on before we fuck up the last mostly pure continent.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
So, this is well within an order of magnitude of the cost estimate for Trump's wall between Mexico and the United States: https://www.brookings.edu/essa...
Global cost / benefit, anyone?
the one made in the 1970s to stop global cooling: spread coal dust on the arctic and antarctic ice sheets. It's on par with importing cane toads into Australia. Or, their rabbit plagues. Or, the Red Fox they introduced to control the rabbits they introduced.
They had it wrong back in 1970 and they have it wrong now. Why did they have it wrong in 1970? Because they tried to tie global cooling into Marxist wealth redistribution, just like they did with "climate change".
Science is never settled. If AGW is "settled" then it is not science.
Running with Linux for over 20 years!
A few years ago, someone decided to use the country of Canada to stop the glaciers from moving southward. It was an environmental disaster with wide spread deforestation and loss of topsoil and native wildlife. Even with an entire country as a buffer, the glaciers did what they would do anyway and headed south. What's more, it was a complete failure. Even though the ice accumulated and became several miles thick in places, Global Warming eventually prevailed and most all the glaciers melted leaving immense amounts of trash in their wake. What's more, the ice was a hazard as it created ice dams and Lake Missoula which broke and released as much as 10 cubic kilometers of water -- per hour creating additional environmental destruction and killing everyone downstream including wildlife. Perhaps it isn't such a great idea after all.
can they also stop Kaijus?
I mean, who drinks tap water these days?
The melting glaciers are absorbing heat energy as they melt.
Very marginally, from the ocean itself, not the atmosphere... and transfer of temperature changes from deep water is incredibly slow. This small and very localized loss would have pretty much zero impact on global warming as a whole, compared to how much the water would rise if the land-locked glaciers were allowed to go free.
Not necessarily a bad thing though as a faster rise in temperature would hopefully make more people take global warming seriously
Global warming is a gift given to or by humanity to avert the only actual danger, the return of the next ice age. Global warming is but a tiny trifle of inconvenience next to that epic disaster which would kill off 90% of humanity.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Because as long as we're fantasizing, why not?
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
What would these walls on the sea floor do to existing currents flowing there? How would they affect the movement of bottom-dwelling creatures. Always unseen/unthought of unintended results.
Chaos maximizes locally around me.
Gee where are explosive exponential increases in seas level, i mean i can block 0.76 cm with one of Cartmans turds.
Comeback when you are talking about something bigger than my dick.
Please, someone tell Trump, finally a wall he can build that might actually help! =P
To be fair, they give estimates on the amount of material needed and compare it to existing building projects. But all I can think is "Lets use lots of fossil fuel energy rearranging rocks."
Make Trump pay for it, as punishment for denying climate change.
Table-ized A.I.
That's just about the dumbest idea I've heard recently. Kinda like mass school shootings here in America: "Screw the cause, let's arm teachers and teach kids CPR!".
Christ, are we really that stupid or what?!?
he's got sssuper ssseecret info about this project getting funded by expropiating oil companies and banks so...
How are they supposed to build that wall? USA has only two icebreakers and only one of those is heavy class.
https://www.military.com/dodbuzz/2018/08/01/trumps-border-wall-could-derail-funding-new-coast-guard-icebreaker.html
A bit of irony here, since they budgetted for more icebreakers and Trump took that money for his wall research.
"Trump's Border Wall Could Derail Funding for New Coast Guard Icebreaker... A report released Friday by the Congressional Research Service warns that Russia is increasing its military presence in the Arctic region. The Russians have more than 45 icebreakers, and they're currently working on building a nuclear version, Schultz said....That's as two of the Coast Guard's three polar icebreakers -- Polar Star and Polar Sea -- have exceeded their 30-year services lives, the report states. The Polar Sea is no longer operational, and the need for search-and-rescue and other missions in the region will increase as traffic in the Arctic picks up....The Senate's appropriations draft for DHS still includes the $750 million for a Coast Guard icebreaker, so it's still possible that the service could get the funding in 2019....The bill wastes "a staggering $4.9 billion on a border wall and increasing the Immigration and Customs Enforcement budget by $328 million,"
$328 million for baby prisons! Check. $4.9 billion for border wall! check. Replace the aging icebreaker so you can at least go visit the Arctic and Antarctic without help from the Russians.... erm.....nope.
KNOWN anti-environmentalist pro-industry shill Ken Doll here to PRETEND TO GIVE A SHIT about under-glacier sea life "affected" by earthen walls under a glacier put there to stop it from fast-melt eroding? ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS?
We've read your YEARS of pretending warming wasn't happening, fuck the planet, fuck environmentalism, pro-business all the way... and now you're going to pretend to be concerned about THIS? FUCKING UNBELIEVABLE LOL.
You should win a fucking EMMY here, you avant garde denialist shill!
Wycliffe is not a climate scientist and doesn't understand the dynamics.
Despite the questionable logic of building on the beachfront, we must all -- as a species -- invest massive amounts of capital and energy to save those who did.
We are *all* owners of beach front real estate. This is a human problem. If you built your house on high ground, you didn't build that. You were lucky. If you chose to live somewhere sane, then you basically won the lottery. People who chose to invest in land that has never once in the history of the world been a good place to stake a claim are victims. We must save them.
Open your wallet. Open your heart. /s
"the latent heat of fusion of ice is something fairly large" - ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS NIGGA GTFO
Just NO
seriously
No
whomever thought that this would be a good idea clearly has earned his degrees in the trump marketing department, studied history and thought the berlin wall was a good idea, or maybe was reborn from the time the great chinese wall was built to keep out the ravaging mongol hordes...
Either way,
just NO
this is such a foolishly stjoepit idea (yes that's misspelled on purpose) that only a flat earther would agree with it since that would kinda validate their theories about there being a wall around the south pole patrolled by all the countries controlled by the illuminati, to keep the normal populace from falling off of the edge of the world.
Just No.
but as ussual, idiocy will prevail, the us still has the two party idiocy, where both parties just are different sides of the same anti-social evil.
N
O
passphrase : pledges
download mp3 -->> ustaoglufilm.com
IIRC, half the sea level rise was supposed to be due to the thermal expansion of the ocean due to the change in the average temperature of the ocean. So, at best this wouldn't stop sea level rise; it'd just cut the rise to about half. That's not really much of a plan when that still translates into a lot of coastal regions half a meter under water in 100 years.
And make Greenland pay for it!
The massive amount of sand and rocks used for building the walls will cost many trillions of dollars, an incredible quantity of energy and a big waste of time as hundreds of years.
The another new idea is building man-made islands near to the Poles although it doesn't solve the problem and creates disputes.
but maybe they wouldn't need to.
Wouldn't this kill the ocean currents stone dead?
Let it flow, let it flow
Can't hold it back anymore
Let it flow, let it flow
Turn away and move from the shore
I don't care what they're going to say
Let the melt rage on
The lack of cold never bothered me anyway
Ther is no such thing as a "popular vote".
California and New York may have gazillion people, but that does not mean that new york and california should be the only places to determine the outcome of USA elections.
Is that you AmiMoyo?
but there's always somebody dumber to invest in them
And make the fish pay for it.
APK forgot his tag.
Found the guy who is still butthurt and can't get over the results of the 2016 election! You go right on deceiving yourself fella.
In the meantime President Trump will nominate a few more conservative judges, the stock market will hit its 101st record high since he took office, unemployment will reach a new all time low.....
Trump 2020
it washed south and sits right where you are
Many very specific things have to happen for it all to work right and be coordinated between countries
"Hillary actually DID win the popular vote"
Which counts for absolutely nothing in a presidential election. Don't you get it? That's ok, hillary wasn't that smart either.
Trump 2016, Obama's true legacy.
wow. this this is super interesting. didnt know. ... and pushes the wall over ... or further out into the sea? :)
if true then a underwater "isolation" wall is pretty clever.
but as far as can remember skool lore, lots of above water features we see today where made by claziers? like hills? so if the wall works the glazier grows
also the question of the carbon emission tally to build the 3cubicKM wall?
looking at the really good illustration, dumping rocks ontop of the glazier will make them fall into the ocean as it retreats thus kinda dumping the wall infront?
best way would probably use some nukes to blow up some miuntain rock and hopeing the ejecta lands somewhere along retreating rim of the glazier
anyways, if everybody would plant 1-10 tree seedling in their life time, may we would not less carbin dioxid, but maybe the solar energy would not turn into heat but rather turn into solid carbon that does work on gravity (grow) and would result in cooler carbon dioxid emissions because a phase change (not burning but sublimation?) from solid carbon to gaseous carbon removes heat?
We are the worst, let's keep pushing nature in unnatural directions.
Actually Bernie won the popular vote... in the Primaries, but just like in the General election that didn't mean jack shit.
Maybe you missed this part in the summary, but the idea is to reduce the flow of warm water erode the ice from underneath. Nobody wants to stop the ice from getting bigger.
You spent a lot more time talking than you spent understanding, didn't you.
Perhaps Trump could take all the illegal border crossers and force them to build the antartica wall. Solve two problems at the same time.
Any measure to correct a global problem would be just as cost prohibitive as the measures that might have helped prevent global warming in the first place.
https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendaEM
Can't Fix Stupid.
Remember when he said Mexico would pay for it.. Have you seen them contibute anything yet?
Glaciers actually are not static and ice is not a rock, it flows. Iceland glaciers keep moving, there is no good reason to believe that a glacier would be stopped by an obstacle. It will just flow around it like a tree grows through a metal fence.
And get the Antarcticans to pay for it!
Oh, wait!?
Oh, wait that was Trump, my bad.
What kind of fake news are you pushing? Hillary won the popular vote in the Democratic primary.
Just what we need...
As I have pointed out many times I am one of the few actual environmentalists here - that means truly thinking long term instead of doing crazy things that sounds good on a very short term but actually hurt the environment.
I have personally done more for the environment already with my bare hands than you will do in a lifetime by any means.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Once the wall be done, we will need another wall to protect the first one.
We represent a group that thinks mucking up the ecology of the ocean will be perfectly clear of unintended consequences. The ecology there will scarecely be affected. The cycle of krill and plankton growth can’t possibly be affected. It all good. We modeled it.
- Tjp
I am in wallow with my inner money grubbing capitalistic pig. ... Oink!
No you haven't. You may think you have, but you haven't.
You do. You just drink it out of an expensive bottle dumbass.
Seriously,
Are these self-called "scientists" the same ones that suggested to build an umbrella to stop Gobal Warming?
This new "idea" is OH SO TERRIBLE in OH SO MANY WAYS that it's OH SO DAMM STUPID that we even need (if they have any) to revoke their PhD for the sake of humanity.
That's not how global warming works. CO2 increases the amount of time that energy from the sun takes to radiate back into space. Since the energy is in the atmosphere and oceans longer the over all amount of energy is greater. That is to say, CO2 increases the equilibrium temperature of the earth. A one time removal of energy to melt all the worlds glaciers has no effect on the equilibrium temperature.
Losing the glaciers does however decrease the Earth's albedo and that also will increase the Earth's equilibrium temperature.
Solution for Global Warming is cutting back fossil fuel usage, increasing clean energy usage, increasing forests etc!
It is definitely not any "bandaid" solution for targeting just a single particular aspect of Global Warming, like melting glaciers!
Also, any/all large scale geoengineering schemes should/must be seen as EXTREMELY DANGEROUS messing w/ nature!
Our scientific knowledge of how exactly natural systems of Earth depend/effect each other is still primitive!
Where is that wall, by the way? It's been nearly two years. Time to get a fucking move on, Donnie. Where's the check from Mexico?
Better hurry, because Bob Mueller (living proof that not ALL republicans are disgusting traitors, just most) is on the way. Get out and vote in November bud, because a blue house is going to turn out badly for your treasonous buddies.
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.