Keith etal (adding in John Nissen and Peter Flynn )
1. Most interesting. I own a solar thermal system with the same heat pipe
theory at work - and would have never carried it over to your Pine Island
example. This to answer your first question on my part. Thanks.
2. Adding John and Peter because of their interest in the northern
equivalent. I think there we are talking of possibly being able also to add
ice just below the existing surface layer, so as to maybe add months to the ice
area/extent lifetime. Maybe especially to be located where there is known
methane below.
3. One beauty is that this is a closed system. Any cites on the liquids used
for the Alaska pipeline? Should be able to design something that floats;
totally passive. Has potential multi-year usage even if nothing possible during
part of the summer. Maybe a gang could be tied together underwater.
4. Answering your second and final question, I would guess that the idea does
qualify as “geoengineering” - but not under the SRM or CDR categories. The
Oxford dictionary says:
the deliberate large-scale manipulation of an environmental process that
affects the earth’s climate, in an attempt to counteract the effects of global
warming.
5. Since you “obviously" need a three-letter acronym, a few possibilities (has
to work at both poles, with both long and short pipes) are: “PIM= Polar Ice
Making”, “PPI = Polar Passive Ice-Making”, “PHP = Polar Heat Pipe”, “PHI =
Polar Heatpipe Ice-making” .
These are maybe not inclusive enough terms. Maybe “TET = Thermal Energy
Transfer” or “PET=Passive Energy Transfer” or “POC - Passive Ocean Cooling”
Best stop until we hear more about past pipeline economics, and more
knowledgable feasibility responses than mine. Again thanks.
Ron
On Jan 14, 2014, at 3:59 PM, Keith Henson <[email protected]> wrote:
> I wonder if anyone has thought about stopping the Pine Island Glacier
> by freezing it to bedrock?
>
> What it would take is a number of thermal diodes. They were used on
> the Alaskan pipeline to keep it from sinking over areas of permafrost.
>
> All they are is a hole drilled to the bottom of the glacier, lined
> with a closed end pipe, a heat radiator on the top and a few gallons
> of propane or ammonia.
>
> The way they work is that when the air is colder than the bottom of
> the pipe, the liquid boils at the bottom, sucking out heat, vapors go
> up and liquid runs back down. The process stops when it is warmer on
> top than at the bottom.
>
> They are not very expensive, each one (over time) freezes a large area
> of the glacier to the underlying rock.
>
> A floating version can freeze a substantial block of ice out of
> seawater in the winter.
>
> I wonder if this would be considered geoengineering?
>
> Keith
>
>
> On Tue, Jan 14, 2014 at 2:31 PM, Ronal W. Larson
> <[email protected]> wrote:
>> Greg etal
>>
>> Because this paper is behind a paywall, I can barely glean from their
>> figures that they may be looking at a fifty year time horizon. Did they
>> look at all at either SRM or CDR when using the term “irreversibility?
>> (quotes in the original - why?)
>>
>> Ron
>>
>>
>> On Jan 14, 2014, at 12:43 PM, Greg Rau <[email protected]> wrote:
>>
>> http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2014/01/13-2
>> Antarctic Glacier's 'Irreversible' Melting Threatens 'Considerable Increase'
>> to Sea Level Rise
>> New study on Pine Island Glacier shows 'striking vision of the near future,'
>> says co-author
>> - Andrea Germanos, staff writer
>> An Antarctic glacier is melting "irreversibly," offering "a striking vision
>> of the near future," a new study shows.
>> The study published Sunday in the journal Nature Climate Change looked at
>> Pine Island Glacier, the largest single contributor to sea-level rise in the
>> Antarctic.
>> The team of scientists used three ice flow models to look at the glacier's
>> grounding line, which separates the grounded ice sheet from the floating ice
>> shelf.
>> The grounding line, which has already retreated by about 10 kilometers in
>> the last decade, "is probably engaged in an unstable 40 kilometer retreat,"
>> the study finds.
>> The glacier "has started a phase of self-sustained retreat and will
>> irreversibly continue its decline," said Gael Durand, a glaciologist with
>> France's Grenoble Alps University and study co-author.
>> Durand says the findings show "a striking vision of the near future. All the
>> models suggest that [the glacier's] recession will not stop, cannot be
>> reversed and that more ice will be transferred into the ocean.”
>> Agence France-Presse adds:
>>
>> A massive river of ice, the glacier by itself is responsible for 20 per cent
>> of total ice loss from the West Antarctic Ice Sheet today.
>> On average, it shed 20 billion tonnes of ice annually from 1992-2011, a loss
>> that is likely to increase up to and above 100 billion tonnes each year,
>> said the study.
>>
>> "The Pine Island Glacier shows the biggest changes in this area at the
>> moment, but if it is unstable it may have implications for the entire West
>> Antarctic Ice Sheet," Planet Earth Online reports study co-author G. Hilmar
>> Gudmundsson from the National Environment Research Council's British
>> Antarctic Survey as saying.
>> "Currently we see around two millimeters of sea level rise a year, and the
>> Pine Island Glacier retreat could contribute an additional 3.5 - 5
>> millimeters in the next twenty years, so it would lead to a considerable
>> increase from this area alone. But the potential is much larger,"
>> Gudmundsson warned.
>>
>> --
>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
>> "geoengineering" group.
>> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an
>> email to [email protected].
>> To post to this group, send email to [email protected].
>> Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering.
>> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
>>
>>
>> --
>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
>> "geoengineering" group.
>> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an
>> email to [email protected].
>> To post to this group, send email to [email protected].
>> Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering.
>> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
>
> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
> "geoengineering" group.
> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an
> email to [email protected].
> To post to this group, send email to [email protected].
> Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering.
> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
"geoengineering" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email
to [email protected].
To post to this group, send email to [email protected].
Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
