Poster's note : extract contains segments that may be new to readers. The body of the article covers more familiar ground.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/can-geoengineering-save-the-world-s-ice/ Extract Already, Swiss ski resorts are covering retreating glaciers in a cloak of thin, reflective foil to stave off meltdown. Residents in Peru have used sawdust or whitewash to similar effect. But some scientists want to go further, given the absence of action to restrain greenhouse gas pollution. They want to change how much sunlight the planet reflects in a bid to save glaciers, cool the planet as a whole, or both. "These strategies range from lighter colored roofs or road surfaces” that could reflect sunlight, cooling cities, “to something as controversial as putting particles high in the stratosphere," explains Ken Caldeira, a climate modeler at the Carnegie Institution's Department of Global Ecology at Stanford University. Particles aloft would reflect some sunlight back into space, keeping Earth cooler. Another alternative has been suggested by glaciologist Slawek Tulaczyk of the University of California, Santa Cruz, who studies west Antarctica's Whillans Ice Sheet, among other glaciers. A hundred kilometers wide, this ice sheet, unlike most of its peers, is actually growing instead of melting, because it has slowed its flow toward the sea in recent decades. Tulaczyk is not entirely sure why, but a better understanding of what slowed Whillans down might suggest ways to put the brakes on other polar glaciers. That might include draining away the water that lubricates the bottom of an ice sheet, speeding its progress to the sea, or installing barriers to prevent warming ocean waters from hitting the bottom of such glaciers and hastening meltdown -- 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/d/optout.
