These crazy, promising projects that want to save ice floes

About twenty centimeters. This is the estimated increase in ocean levels in less than 150 years on Earth, and this phenomenon has accelerated with global warming. As water levels rise, beaches recede and coastlines become more fragile. Water that comes in particular from the Arctic where the ice sheet is warming very quickly, causing huge masses to collapse into the oceans.

It's the fastest warming place on Earth, and recent research reveals that sea ice is warming almost four times faster than the Earth's average, and the highly reflective Arctic sea ice is expected to disappear in less than two decades. If the Greenland ice sheet disappeared completely, it would cause sea levels to rise by 7 metres!

Geoengineering wants to change the climate

To stop this phenomenon and prevent it from reaching this point, scientists have several ways, including: The latest report lists more than 60 ! In a video, the Wall Street Journal reveals some of them. We also talk about geoengineering, when it comes to techniques for modeling certain aspects of the environment in order to compensate for the harmful effects of climate change. For example, among current projects, there is a project that directly converts sunlight from space, or sends balloons containing reflective particles into the atmosphere

One of the experiments presented involves pumping water to the surface, where it will then freeze to form a protective layer on Arctic snow. This is a project of the Dutch startup Arctic Reflections. It is linked to climate scientists, and aspires to reverse the melting of Arctic glaciers by designing a “protective layer”. The video he posted online Wall Street Journal It shows the process of rebuilding ice sheets to increase their thickness and mitigate the impact of climate change. Arctic Reflections CEO Fonger Ypma explains that the concept is inspired by Dutch ice masters, or IJsmeesters, who flood fields to create ice rinks.

The best solution: address the cause and reduce greenhouse gases

He acknowledges that this solution is temporary, and that the goal is simply to create a protective layer of ice to preserve the Arctic until technological advances can further reduce global carbon emissions. Another obstacle: it would be necessary to cover 13 million square kilometers, with mountains 5,000 meters high! This is equivalent to about 30 times the area of ​​France…

Another project was the idea of ​​scattering reflective glass beads on the snow to reflect the sun's rays. Ideas that do not convince experts, such as Julianne Struve, a professor specializing in distance sciences. According to her, the focus should always be on quickly reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Of the 60 ideas in the report, she says carbon capture methods that “target the root cause” are better than many others. Who just do “Putting a band-aid on the problem locally, as the planet warms.”

Simulate a volcano column to block the rays

However, some ideas based on solar engineering methods have supporters among specialists. Such as the brightness of polar marine clouds or increased snowfall. One of the most common methods is to inject aerosols into the Arctic stratosphere. This process is known as solar radiation management (SRM), and its effectiveness is well established. This method would essentially mimic a volcanic plume in the stratosphere, and has been proposed by many researchers as a way to limit global warming.