If the entire polar ice caps melt sea levels will rise approximately 230 feet. That's the end of every coastal city in the world.
Given how all data trends point to how we are pretty much going to fail at stopping global warming, the glass bubbles are 100% worth considering EVEN when you consider the potential negative side effects.
Before 2100. Estimates on that site say as close as 2040.
It's mostly because this problem lacks visibility because we haven't been hit with the brunt of it yet. Hard to care about it when it's just some hypothetical impending problem for Florida real estate.
Well before the ice caps completely melt, when the problem is evident we will likely turn to drastic solutions like this to change things regardless of the current opinion right now.
These are not obscure pieces of data they aren't even close to unfounded they are in google and roughly the first search results. What I don't understand is the hostility here. Look up the facts yourself because you obviously didn't. It is illogical to be hostile towards something you didn't look up.
I'm sure there's contradictory evidence too, but you obviously didn't dig for that because you offered nothing to counter the evidence I presented.
All of your sources are about Arctic sea ice melting completely. If all of the floating ice shelves and sea ice melted (all of it on Earth), it would raise the level of the ocean by 1.5-2 inches [0]
For the sea level to rise 230’, all of the Antarctic ice would need to melt which will take hundreds or likely thousands of years. [1]
So no, there will not be 230’ of sea level rise in the next 75 years. That being said, the melt in Antarctica could raise sea levels by several feet by the end of the century, which would absolutely impact every coastal city on earth.
> If the entire polar ice caps melt sea levels will rise approximately 230 feet. That's the end of every coastal city in the world.
Here's a better solution than glass bubbles or whatever geo-engineering stunt people come up with: how about we adjust our culture and attitude to value the biosphere instead of feeding it into a meatgrinder; to encourage companies to make things that last instead of making things that break and need to be thrown away; to look at our energy use and just stop using so much of it.
Yeah I'll give you 10 million if you can convince one of your friends to stop driving gas cars to save the environment.
If you cant do that how can you do it for the world? Idealistic pipe dream solutions won't happen. We have to mitigate our oil addiction with stop gap unideal solutions.
Why "gas" cars? Why not electric cars? The electricity comes from somewhere, eg: coal, natural gas. Even with solar there are enormous environmental impacts from the manufacture and distribution of solar panels, batteries, etc.
> In the next 2,000 years the sea level is predicted to rise
> by 2–3 m (6–10 ft) if the temperature rise peaks at 1.5 °C (2.7 °F),
> by 2–6 m (6–19 ft) if it peaks at 2 °C (3.6 °F) and
> by 19–22 m (62–72 ft) if it peaks at 5 °C (9.0 °F)
Additionally
> If temperature rise stops at 2 °C (3.6 °F) or at 5 °C (9.0 °F), the sea level would still continue to rise for about 10,000 years. In the first case it will reach 8–13 m (26–42 ft) above pre-industrial level, and in the second 28–37 m (92–12 ft).
It is over 2000 years though. By 2100 the absolute worst case scenarios have sea level rise at about 2m
(note: I rounded down halves of ft to make it more readable, but the metres are unchanged)
You got one source. There are other sources that say it will happen sooner. Many other sources and these sources are not obscure.
Given multiple sources saying different things, It's hard to predict. Though what we are seeing are feedback loops that are causing exponential effects. I would say although we don't know... before 2100 is a realistic and viable possibility.
Gambling solely on 2000 years because it's a more convenient prediction would be unwise.
Either way, even if we don't know, now if sea levels do rise at a pace that will occur before 2100 we would eventually see it and adjust our reaction speed accordingly.
> Given multiple sources saying different things, It's hard to predict. Though what we are seeing are feedback loops that are causing exponential effects.
> Gambling solely on 2000 years because it's a more convenient prediction would be unwise.
I agree with both of these things. It's all so unpredictable.
But I do think there's a sort of terror-cult around climate change which is not very helpful. The extreme doom scenarios are easier for people to reject and disbelieve and they make people sceptical of changes that are actually, demonstrably happening already.
What happened to the idea of pumping seawater into the center of Antarctica, where is will freeze and accumulate? This is not addressing the energy balance, the way the project in the article does, but it's a direct attack on sea level change. And it would be huge and require a massive input of energy so it should scratch the itch of dedicated geoengineers.
Isn't this the place where the polar ice caps are melting? Putting water in an area where ice is turning into water (aka melting) doesn't necessarily create more ice? Perhaps I'm missing some details here?
That would consume more energy than the entire rest of human activities combined. It's hydroelectric power — but in reverse, and on a grand, geoengineering scale.
2500m mean elevation is a misleading application of mean. There's a prominent high point right in the middle. There's a broad area < 1000m far enough inland. Agreed that it still requires a wonderful input of energy.
While hearing about record sea level heat numbers on the radio this morning, it occurred to me that a project to actively cool the ocean with zero-emission energy (ideally nuclear) might be a worthy undertaking.
The original idea seems a bit out there, but technically you could use space as a heat sink. This is what happens on deserts at nights when the sky is clear for example.
Ok, then you just have to stop that obnoxious sun from heating it all up again during the day. Which leads us straight to the various geoengineering proposals for limiting the amount of energy absorbed from the sun. The problem (or rather, one of the problems) is to avoid falling into the opposite extreme...
Well, technically no (I don't know why I'm arguing for this idea, as it's clearly infeasible). You could run a cooling system at night on the desert, where the heat would be radiated to space. The net effect would cool the planet. Obviously it would not be feasible for any significant cooling, but in theory it would work.
I mean clearly the sun would keep heating up the planet, but this would be a different infeasible idea from the other infeasible ideas of shading the sun light and whatnot. But you know, anything but limiting consumption, touching our diets etc.
If you use the clean energy to cool the ocean, you use dirty energy for actual needs and end up net worse than just using the clean energy to do normal stuff
That’s the normal answer at least. I feel like the answer to “cool the ocean” might be a lot more punishing.
As others have pointed out, it's not even what energy you use where, it's the laws of thermodynamics, you can't make the system colder, you shuffle heat around, so that's gotta go somewhere. I don't care if you're using the natural power of lightning strikes, you gotta put that heat somewhere and if you're venting it out into the atmosphere I can tell you where it's going to end back up.
Isn't it possible to radiate heat into space, like with a directional radiator? Or are you saying that it is possible to do that, but it's not possible to convert heat in the atmosphere into radiant heat that goes out of a radiator without somehow generating more heat that goes into the earth?
I didn't consider a directional radiators. Maybe that's more possible, but still you'd need to move a huge portion of what the sun is hitting the earth with and reflect it back into space.
Looks like the oceans have been heating at a rate of ~0.5 - 1 W / m2[1], and there's 3.61e+14 m2 of ocean on the planet, so potentially we'd need to radiate 361,000,000,000,000 W into space just to break even (assuming we're not generating heat to move the heat)?
Can you imagine once the ice is finally melted, the riches that lay beneath? There is likely to be a jambalaya of natural resources, ready for the enterprise or fledgling startup! Why not let the ice melt, and start a business based on it?!
Errrr. Journalism. Yikes. This happens to be precisely one of the research topics I study, sea ice energy feedbacks and constraints. Two prominent sea ice physicists have gone through the effort to directly debunk this because it's such a bad idea[1]. One is my friend and we talked about it at length. The initial white paper outlining their geoengineering plan has very basic flaws in their physical assumptions and spectral response.
This is an astonishingly bad idea. I'm disappointed in the lack of background+context provided by the New Yorker here...
What surprises me is how many coastal people are either ignorant of or in denial about sea level rise. We were recently at the coast and there were new homes going up, right on the beach, just a few feet above current sea level. That just seems like complete insanity to me.
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[ 3.5 ms ] story [ 128 ms ] threadNo.
Given how all data trends point to how we are pretty much going to fail at stopping global warming, the glass bubbles are 100% worth considering EVEN when you consider the potential negative side effects.
https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0319262/
Before 2100. Estimates on that site say as close as 2040.
It's mostly because this problem lacks visibility because we haven't been hit with the brunt of it yet. Hard to care about it when it's just some hypothetical impending problem for Florida real estate.
Well before the ice caps completely melt, when the problem is evident we will likely turn to drastic solutions like this to change things regardless of the current opinion right now.
There’s plenty to be concerned about with climate change without making unfounded breathless claims.
The 230 feet sea level rise as a result of complete melt down of polar ice caps is from OTHER sources. I can certainly provide that as well:
https://www.usgs.gov/faqs/how-would-sea-level-change-if-all-....
https://sealevel.nasa.gov/understanding-sea-level/global-sea... (more than 160m)
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2020/oct/... (all ice caps melted by 2035)
These are not obscure pieces of data they aren't even close to unfounded they are in google and roughly the first search results. What I don't understand is the hostility here. Look up the facts yourself because you obviously didn't. It is illogical to be hostile towards something you didn't look up.
I'm sure there's contradictory evidence too, but you obviously didn't dig for that because you offered nothing to counter the evidence I presented.
For the sea level to rise 230’, all of the Antarctic ice would need to melt which will take hundreds or likely thousands of years. [1]
So no, there will not be 230’ of sea level rise in the next 75 years. That being said, the melt in Antarctica could raise sea levels by several feet by the end of the century, which would absolutely impact every coastal city on earth.
[0] https://nsidc.org/news-analyses/news-stories/melting-floatin...
[1] https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2023/03/antarctic-ice-sheet-i...
Here's a better solution than glass bubbles or whatever geo-engineering stunt people come up with: how about we adjust our culture and attitude to value the biosphere instead of feeding it into a meatgrinder; to encourage companies to make things that last instead of making things that break and need to be thrown away; to look at our energy use and just stop using so much of it.
How about that?
oh sweet flower child
If you cant do that how can you do it for the world? Idealistic pipe dream solutions won't happen. We have to mitigate our oil addiction with stop gap unideal solutions.
> In the next 2,000 years the sea level is predicted to rise > by 2–3 m (6–10 ft) if the temperature rise peaks at 1.5 °C (2.7 °F), > by 2–6 m (6–19 ft) if it peaks at 2 °C (3.6 °F) and > by 19–22 m (62–72 ft) if it peaks at 5 °C (9.0 °F)
Additionally
> If temperature rise stops at 2 °C (3.6 °F) or at 5 °C (9.0 °F), the sea level would still continue to rise for about 10,000 years. In the first case it will reach 8–13 m (26–42 ft) above pre-industrial level, and in the second 28–37 m (92–12 ft).
It is over 2000 years though. By 2100 the absolute worst case scenarios have sea level rise at about 2m
(note: I rounded down halves of ft to make it more readable, but the metres are unchanged)
Given multiple sources saying different things, It's hard to predict. Though what we are seeing are feedback loops that are causing exponential effects. I would say although we don't know... before 2100 is a realistic and viable possibility.
Gambling solely on 2000 years because it's a more convenient prediction would be unwise.
Either way, even if we don't know, now if sea levels do rise at a pace that will occur before 2100 we would eventually see it and adjust our reaction speed accordingly.
> Gambling solely on 2000 years because it's a more convenient prediction would be unwise.
I agree with both of these things. It's all so unpredictable.
But I do think there's a sort of terror-cult around climate change which is not very helpful. The extreme doom scenarios are easier for people to reject and disbelieve and they make people sceptical of changes that are actually, demonstrably happening already.
https://www.google.com/search?q=%281+meter+%2F+100+years%29+...
(2.5 km for mean elevation of Antarctica; 1 meter/100 years for rough approximation of sea level rise to be countered).
The phrasing of DARPA grant requests is an art.
I mean clearly the sun would keep heating up the planet, but this would be a different infeasible idea from the other infeasible ideas of shading the sun light and whatnot. But you know, anything but limiting consumption, touching our diets etc.
Pump all the heat into one big black body radiator until it glows red hot, then divert the emanating radiation out into space.
Is this feasible given how the unwanted heat is spread throughout the atmosphere and ocean?
> into one big black body radiator until it glows red hot, then divert the emanating radiation out into space.
The atmosphere being in the way would seem to be a problem...
I'm not a physicist though. I'd love to see some back of the envelope calculations exploring whether this is theoretically feasible.
https://youtu.be/0SYpUSjSgFg?t=66
That’s the normal answer at least. I feel like the answer to “cool the ocean” might be a lot more punishing.
Looks like the oceans have been heating at a rate of ~0.5 - 1 W / m2[1], and there's 3.61e+14 m2 of ocean on the planet, so potentially we'd need to radiate 361,000,000,000,000 W into space just to break even (assuming we're not generating heat to move the heat)?
[1] https://e360.yale.edu/features/how_long_can_oceans_continue_...
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0SYpUSjSgFg
https://youtu.be/PNjIWeDnz4E?t=47
This is an astonishingly bad idea. I'm disappointed in the lack of background+context provided by the New Yorker here...
https://www.gi.alaska.edu/news/study-glass-microspheres-wont...