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Geoengineers plan to test giant underwater curtains that could slow catastrophic glacial melt.
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The Thwaites, aka “doomsday glacier,” has lost more than 1,000 billion tons of ice since 2000.
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If the Thwaites were to collapse completely, global sea levels would eventually rise by about 10 feet.
Sea level rise may not be much of a concern. But if sea levels were to rise 2 feet worldwide, the impact on coastal communities would be devastating.
There would be terrible flooding in cities like New York, Miami and New Orleans. Across the globe, 97 million people would be on the way to rapidly shrinking waters, putting their homes, communities and livelihoods at risk.
That’s what would happen if the Thwaites glacier, known as the ‘doomsday glacier’, collapsed. But it wouldn’t stop there.
Currently, this massive Antarctic ice shelf prevents warming seawater from reaching other glaciers. If the Thwaites collapsed, it would trigger a melting cascade that could raise sea levels by another 10 feet.
Already, the Thwaites melt contributes 4% of global sea level rise. Since 2000, the Thwaites have lost over 1,000 billion tonnes of ice. But it’s far from the only glacier in trouble, and we’re running out of time to save them.
That’s why geoengineers are innovating technologies that could slow glacial melting.
The latest strategy is curtains. That’s right – underwater curtains. John Moore, a glaciologist and geoengineering researcher at the University of Lapland, wants to install giant underwater curtains 62 miles long to prevent warm seawater from reaching and melting glaciers.
But he needs $50 billion to do it.
Drawing the curtains on glacial melting
One of the main drivers of glacial melting is the flow of warm seawater deep within the ocean. These warm currents run against the sides of Thwaites, for example, melting away the thick ice that keeps the edge of the shelf from collapsing.
As the oceans warm due to climate change, these intruding currents will erode the Thwaites more and more, driving them closer to total collapse.
Moore and his colleagues are trying to figure out if they could place curtains on the floor of the Amundsen sea to slow the melting.
In theory, these curtains would block the flow of warm currents to the Thwaites to stop melting and give the ice shelf time to thicken again.
This is not the first time Moore has proposed this blocking solution. His curtain idea is based on a similar solution he proposed back in 2018, which would block hot water using a giant wall.
But curtains are a much safer option, according to Moore.
They are just as effective at blocking hot currents, but much easier to remove if needed, he explained.
For example, if the curtains caused unexpected damage to the local environment, they could be taken out and redesigned.
“Any intervention should be something you can go back to if you have second thoughts,” Moore said.
Although Moore and his colleagues are still decades away from implementing this technology to save the Thwaites, they are in the middle of testing prototypes on a smaller scale.
A $50 billion idea
Moore’s colleagues at Cambridge University are already in the very early stages of developing and testing a prototype, and could move on to the next stage as early as the summer of 2025, according to Moore.
Currently, researchers at the University of Cambridge are testing a 3-foot-long version of this technology inside tanks. Once they’ve proven its functionality, they’ll move on to testing it in the River Cam, either by installing it at the bottom of the river or towing it behind a boat, Moore said.
The idea is to gradually scale up the prototypes until evidence suggests the technology is stable enough to be installed in the Antarctic, Moore explained.
If successful, they could be testing a series of 33-foot-long curtain prototypes in a Norwegian fjord in about two years.
“We want to know, what could possibly go wrong? And if there is no solution to it, then in the end you just give up,” said Moore. “But there’s also a lot of incentive to try to make it work.”
With scaling comes an increased need for funding. This year’s experiments will cost about $10,000. But to get to the point where Moore and his colleagues could confidently implement this technology, they will need about $10 million.
And they would need another $50 billion to install curtains in the Amundsen Sea.
“It sounds like a lot of hell,” Moore said. “But compare the risk-risk: the cost of sea level protection around the world, just coastal defenses, is estimated to be about $50 billion per year per meter of sea level rise.”
While some coastal cities, like New York, have a budget to adapt to rising seas, others won’t even come close.
“One of the big driving forces for us is this point of social justice – that it’s a much fairer way to deal with sea level rise than just saying, ‘We should spend this money on adaptation, ‘” said Moore.
Race against time
Data shows that the Thwaites glacier, and others like it, are melting at unprecedented rates due to climate change. But the question of when they might fall is a matter of debate among glaciologists.
“We don’t really know if [the Thwaites] could collapse tomorrow, or 10 years from now, or 50 years from now,” said Moore, adding, “We need to collect better data.”
But it will take time to collect better data that these glaciers would not have.
Proponents of glacial geoengineering, like Moore, believe the time for intervention is now. Other experts disagree, arguing that cutting carbon emissions is the only viable way to slow glacial melt.
While reducing emissions is critical to mitigating the effects of climate change, Moore isn’t confident we’ll cut back big enough or fast enough to save the Thwaites. When it reaches a tipping point, “It’s because the glacier is no longer worrying about what people want to do with their emissions,” he said.
“At that point, that’s when you need the other tools in the box.”
Read the original article on Business Insider
