Lots of questions. But there are lots of questions about what could happen if we fail to cool the Arctic. Some of these were explored at the Colloquium arranged by Bill McGuire, recently reported here: http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20327273.800-climate-change-may-trigger-earthquakes-and-volcanoes.html
One of the most dramatic possibilities, which has not completely ruled out, is containment failure in NW Greenland allowing a vast chunk of ice to slide into the sea. We heard from the colloquium how a containment failure could be triggered by heavy rain (remember the heavy rains in June 2007?). Alternatively, isostatic rebound (as ice mass loss from the Greenland ice dome continues apace) could trigger an earthquake at the edge of the ice, running along the coast. Dr Y Tony Song gave a presentation on how earthquakes can form tsunamis. But if there were a containment failure along a length of coast, releasing a vast chuck of ice from behind, there could be a mega-tsunami because of an almighty kinetic element of the moving ice. I don't know whether he has studied this possibility. (Have you, Dr Song? I'm sorry I didn't get a chance to talk to you at the colloquium.) The safest thing would be to cool the Arctic (at any rate halt the warming) before we get any really unpleasant surprises. Cheers, John Eugene I. Gordon wrote: > No doubt cooling the Arctic without cooling elsewhere is a useful trick if > it can be done. Pray tell how many terawatts do you believe will have to be > eliminated to cool the Arctic enough to slow glacial melting. How long will > it take. Who will have to agree? Then tell how credible you think the > predictions are. What experiments have been done? Who will come up with the > trillion US$ or so needed to implement the scheme and how certain are the > numbers? You have some mighty 'mights' > > Eugene Gordon > -----Original Message----- > From: [email protected] > [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Neil Farbstein > Sent: Thursday, September 24, 2009 3:56 PM > To: geoengineering > Subject: [geo] $2 billion per terrawatt sounds pretty good > > > If that $2 billion were spent to slow glacial melting of Greenland it > might lower the predicted rise of ocean levels. Keeping the Arctic > cooler without affecting the rest of the world might be advisable > since > we can prevent melting of arctic permafrost that will lead to a > runaway greenhouse effect by emitting methane and CO2 by the gigaton. > I've had some other ideas about keeping the arctic cool but i wont > tell them to the group since I plan to apply for grant funding to > support my efforts. > > > > > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "geoengineering" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
