Climate change is real, and one of its biggest victims is the Arctic sea ice. Since the1980s, the amount of ice on average, droped by more than 13 percent per decade.
According to a paper published by the journal, Earth future, scientists may have a solution. It involves ten million pumps.
The plan is to refreeze the 10% of the Arctic ice caps by using giant wind-powered pumps to cover the existing ice caps with seawater.
When the sea water is sprayed on top of the frozen ice and surrounded by the -40 °C air, it freezes in to ice.
According to tha paper, it would take approximately 10 million pumps, outputting 16,5 pounds or 7,5 kg per second, to add 3 feet of ice over 10% of the Arctic ocean.
For every 4 feet (1,2 M) of water pumped onto the surface, the ice would become roughly 3 feet thicker.
A plan that, if it works will postpone the loss of ice caps by 17 years for every year we do this.|
As the researchers say "implementation over the early 2030's would reset the clock to the present day."
This is great news, because at the current rate, it is estimated that the ice caps will be totally gone by 2030.
The plan is not easy at all or economical. The total cost would be 50 billion dollars per year, or 500 dollars over 10 years and that is only to cover the 10% of the Arctic.
Another leading solution is called solar radiation management.
In nature volcanic eruptions scater sulfate particles in to the upper atmosphere as part of an ash cloud.
It has been observed that these particles reflect solar radiation back to space and lead to cooling the earth below.
Another possible method is a giant, space-based sunshade. By reducing the amount of light reaching our earth we could cool earth quickly, even with rising carbon dioxide levels. It is belived that we need to divert just 2-4% of the amount of sunlight that Earth recieves to take the it back to its pre-industrial climate.
Space sunshades have support in high places, from Nasa to the Royal Society, to the European Union.
Ultimately there is no, simple elegant solution, technology alone won't solve the problem. The world is still warming, ice caps are melting and the sea levels are rising. Our green gas emissions are still high.
Once the caps are gone, there will be no ice reflecting the light away from earth, the ocean will absorb even more solar radiation an heat which will influence global warming.
Worse the more ice is melted in the Arctic, the more methane will be released into the atmosphere,currently gas is trapped under the permafrost, this gas could speed up global warming if it ends up in the atmosphere.
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information source:http://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-have-announced-a-plan-to-refreeze-the-arctic-and-it-s-wild
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2016EF000410/full
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20160425-how-a-giant-space-umbrella-could-stop-global-warming