Radical Climate Adaptation in Antarctica
Geoeng Info
Radical Climate Adaptation in Antarctica
Abstract
As the climate crisis intensifies, there is growing interest in policies that might supplement emissions reduction and adaptation, such as carbon removal systems and solar radiation modification. One newly prominent class of proposed interventions, which we call radical adaptation, would aim to stabilize Antarctic ice sheets, the loss of which threatens significant sea-level rise worldwide. Ice-sheet stabilization does not fit neatly within the conventional taxonomy of climate responses. Like adaptation, it would target the consequences of climate change, not the causes. But it would do so through spatially concentrated, high-leverage developments to reduce harms worldwide, rather than by separate actions in thousands of threatened coastal regions. These interventions further would have to be researched, assessed, and executed in the unique geopolitical, legal, and administrative context of Antarctica.
This Article examines how radical adaptation might interact with the governance and geopolitics of the Antarctic Treaty System. It argues that early research into ice-sheet stabilization could readily proceed under the present system. Operational deployment would require substantial governance changes, but these may be less extreme than they initially appear and may even benefit Antarctic governance more broadly. Researching and developing ice-sheet stabilization could provide an avenue to sustain the System’s core values of peace, science, and environmental protection, while also strengthening its global legitimacy. The governance challenges under the Antarctic Treaty System are substantial, but they are ultimately surmountable.
SALTER Stephen
Hi All
Page 43 of the Corbet and Parson paper says that marine cloud brightening would not address the upwelling of warm ocean water that is driving ice sheet destabilization from below. But all this water must have got its heat from the sun shining on the ocean surface somewhere. My engineering guess is that this quite a lot of the somewhere is likely to be the Indian Ocean. If we know enough about the direction and velocity of the currents between wherever and the Antarctic we can reduce the problem. If current velocities are low we might have to wait a while and cooling the somewhere is likely to change the current patterns but we should be able to calculate how much. Putting sea surface temperatures back to where they used to be would have a better than even chance of beneficial results.
The last page of the attached file has some data on present current patterns with attractive benefit-to-cost ratios for stopping sea level rise. Corrections and suggestions for other input assumptions would be welcome. There is also a handout for COP26 trying to say everything on a single sheet.
Breathe safely
Stephen
Emeritus Professor of Engineering Design
School of Engineering
Mayfield Road
Edinburgh EH9 3DW
0131 650 5704
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-0h14RFq4M&t=155s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBB6WtH_Ni8
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