Experiment Currently Taking Place in the Arctic?

[Josh Horton]

Hi everyone,

Near the end of a recent, otherwise unremarkable story about geoengineering at RTCC (link below), Piers Forster from Leeds University is quoted as follows:

“There is one experiment we’re currently undertaking – we’re trying to look at rescuing Arctic Ice by stimulating aeroplanes flying from Spitzbergen in Norway – and dump out a lot of Sulphur Dioxide, and we’re trying to look at that as a very short term protection against the loss of Arctic Ice."

(http://www.rtcc.org/scientists-warn-earth-cooling-proposals-are-no-climate-silver-bullet/)

Does anyone know what he is talking about?

Josh Horton

joshuah...@gmail.com

[Hawkins, Dave]

Sounds like a modeling exercise: "stimulating" should be "simulating," I assume.

Typed on tiny keyboard. Caveat lector.

joshuah...@gmail.com<mailto:joshuah...@gmail.com>


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[John Latham]

Hello All,

I'm told that it might be an airborne study associated
with the SPICE project, but I cant gauge the accuracy of that
supposition.

Cheers, John.

John Latham
Address: P.O. Box 3000,MMM,NCAR,Boulder,CO 80307-3000
Email: lat...@ucar.edu or john.l...@manchester.ac.uk
Tel: (US-Work) 303-497-8182 or (US-Home) 303-444-2429
or (US-Cell) 303-882-0724 or (UK) 01928-730-002
http://www.mmm.ucar.edu/people/latham
________________________________________
From: geoengi...@googlegroups.com [geoengi...@googlegroups.com] on behalf of Hawkins, Dave [dhaw...@nrdc.org]
Sent: 17 June 2013 01:33
To: <joshuah...@gmail.com>
Cc: geoengi...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [geo] Experiment Currently Taking Place in the Arctic?

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[Matthew Watson]

Apologies - replied only to John first time. Also, I've changed the link for iagp to correct. It is interesting where iagp.org (my original choice) points...

John, Josh et al.,

Piers Morgan is a modeller at Leeds, who runs the IAGP project - www.iagp.ac.uk. It is undoubtedly a modelling effort and a typo if it pertains to his work. To be absolutely clear, SPICE is not involved in any experiment that sprays anything anywhere. Our one effort to investigate pumping technologies (using water) was, as I'm sure you're all aware, called off. If there is an experiment to 'dump out a lot of Sulphur Dioxide'  SPICE is (a) not involved and (b) would be extremely alarmed.

Matt

[Matthew Watson]

OK - I generally have a no email  before my second cup of coffee rule, which I broke this morning as I wanted to make sure John's point was quickly dealt with. I did of course mean Piers Forster not Piers Morgan (thanks Simon Driscoll for pointing this out). Another rumour to add to the mill thanks to me... ho hum...

Matt

[John Latham]

Hello Matt,

Thank you for the clarification.

Apologies for troubling you, and - I hope this makes sense -
I'm glad I was misinformed.

Best Wishes, John.

John Latham
Address: P.O. Box 3000,MMM,NCAR,Boulder,CO 80307-3000
Email: lat...@ucar.edu or john.l...@manchester.ac.uk
Tel: (US-Work) 303-497-8182 or (US-Home) 303-444-2429
or (US-Cell) 303-882-0724 or (UK) 01928-730-002
http://www.mmm.ucar.edu/people/latham
________________________________________

From: Matthew Watson [matthew...@gmail.com]
Sent: 17 June 2013 09:11
To: John Latham
Cc: dhaw...@nrdc.org; <joshuah...@gmail.com>; al...@env.leeds.ac.uk; geoengi...@googlegroups.com

Subject: Re: [geo] Experiment Currently Taking Place in the Arctic?

Apologies - replied only to John first time. Also, I've changed the link for iagp to correct. It is interesting where iagp.org<http://iagp.org> (my original choice) points...

John, Josh et al.,

Piers Morgan is a modeller at Leeds, who runs the IAGP project - www.iagp.<http://www.iagp.org/>ac.uk<http://ac.uk>. It is undoubtedly a modelling effort and a typo if it pertains to his work. To be absolutely clear, SPICE is not involved in any experiment that sprays anything anywhere. Our one effort to investigate pumping technologies (using water) was, as I'm sure you're all aware, called off. If there is an experiment to 'dump out a lot of Sulphur Dioxide' SPICE is (a) not involved and (b) would be extremely alarmed.

Matt

On Mon, Jun 17, 2013 at 7:39 AM, John Latham <john.l...@manchester.ac.uk<mailto:john.l...@manchester.ac.uk>> wrote:
Hello All,

I'm told that it might be an airborne study associated
with the SPICE project, but I cant gauge the accuracy of that
supposition.

Cheers, John.

John Latham
Address: P.O. Box 3000,MMM,NCAR,Boulder,CO 80307-3000

Email: lat...@ucar.edu<mailto:lat...@ucar.edu> or john.l...@manchester.ac.uk<mailto:john.l...@manchester.ac.uk>
Tel: (US-Work) 303-497-8182<tel:303-497-8182> or (US-Home) 303-444-2429<tel:303-444-2429>
or (US-Cell) 303-882-0724<tel:303-882-0724> or (UK) 01928-730-002
http://www.mmm.ucar.edu/people/latham
________________________________________
From: geoengi...@googlegroups.com<mailto:geoengi...@googlegroups.com> [geoengi...@googlegroups.com<mailto:geoengi...@googlegroups.com>] on behalf of Hawkins, Dave [dhaw...@nrdc.org<mailto:dhaw...@nrdc.org>]

Sent: 17 June 2013 01:33

To: <joshuah...@gmail.com<mailto:joshuah...@gmail.com>>
Cc: geoengi...@googlegroups.com<mailto:geoengi...@googlegroups.com>

Subject: Re: [geo] Experiment Currently Taking Place in the Arctic?

Sounds like a modeling exercise: "stimulating" should be "simulating," I assume.

Typed on tiny keyboard. Caveat lector.

On Jun 16, 2013, at 6:39 PM, "Josh Horton" <joshuah...@gmail.com<mailto:joshuah...@gmail.com><mailto:joshuah...@gmail.com<mailto:joshuah...@gmail.com>>> wrote:

Hi everyone,

Near the end of a recent, otherwise unremarkable story about geoengineering at RTCC (link below), Piers Forster from Leeds University is quoted as follows:

“There is one experiment we’re currently undertaking – we’re trying to look at rescuing Arctic Ice by stimulating aeroplanes flying from Spitzbergen in Norway – and dump out a lot of Sulphur Dioxide, and we’re trying to look at that as a very short term protection against the loss of Arctic Ice."

(http://www.rtcc.org/scientists-warn-earth-cooling-proposals-are-no-climate-silver-bullet/)

Does anyone know what he is talking about?

Josh Horton

joshuah...@gmail.com<mailto:joshuah...@gmail.com><mailto:joshuah...@gmail.com<mailto:joshuah...@gmail.com>>

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[Peter Flynn]

I remain of the belief that simply creating thicker and more extensive ice
by the known and proven technique of pumping or spraying water into cold
air in the winter is a cheap, safe (because it can be halted at any time)
and already demonstrated process (on both fresh and salt water). If any
missed the previous paper on this I am happy to resend.

This technique works by increasing the rate of heat transfer: water on top
of ice freezes much more quickly than water at the bottom of ice because
the ice is both an insulation layer and it prevents convective heat
transfer from the water layer to the air.

I think this is intuitively safer than atmospheric modification because it
can be stopped at once.

Peter Flynn

Peter Flynn, P. Eng., Ph. D.
Emeritus Professor and Poole Chair in Management for Engineers
Department of Mechanical Engineering
University of Alberta
peter...@ualberta.ca
cell: 928 451 4455

-----Original Message-----
From: geoengi...@googlegroups.com
[mailto:geoengi...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Hawkins, Dave
Sent: June-16-13 6:34 PM
To: <joshuah...@gmail.com>
Cc: geoengi...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [geo] Experiment Currently Taking Place in the Arctic?

Sounds like a modeling exercise: "stimulating" should be "simulating," I
assume.

Typed on tiny keyboard. Caveat lector.


On Jun 16, 2013, at 6:39 PM, "Josh Horton"
<joshuah...@gmail.com<mailto:joshuah...@gmail.com>> wrote:

Hi everyone,

Near the end of a recent, otherwise unremarkable story about
geoengineering at RTCC (link below), Piers Forster from Leeds University
is quoted as follows:

"There is one experiment we're currently undertaking - we're trying to

look at rescuing Arctic Ice by stimulating aeroplanes flying from

Spitzbergen in Norway - and dump out a lot of Sulphur Dioxide, and we're

trying to look at that as a very short term protection against the loss of
Arctic Ice."

(http://www.rtcc.org/scientists-warn-earth-cooling-proposals-are-no-climat
e-silver-bullet/)

Does anyone know what he is talking about?

Josh Horton
joshuah...@gmail.com<mailto:joshuah...@gmail.com>


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[Hawkins, Dave]

What is your energy source for this pumping and spraying?

geoengineering+cr

[Mike MacCracken]

Dear Peter--I must have missed the paper. I agree that it could help thicken
the ice. It seems to me the problems here, however, would be the engineering
of it--how does one make it happen without icing up the whole apparatus, and
how does one power it efficiently? On powering it, it would be great if it
could take advantage of the temperature difference between the water below
the ice and the air temperature above the ice, but it would just seem to me
that the potential for icing up would be huge, so it would be hard to put
out some sort of floating buoy system that just sprayed out a continuing
stream in many directions, etc.

I'd be interested in hearing about any ideas in this regard.

Regards, Mike MacCracken

[pcf...@ualberta.ca]

Mike,

It is easy not to ice up: you flow or spray the water away from you. I had
pointed out in an earlier posting that this technique is used routinely in
the north to make ice roads for access to remote areas. I know of one
instance where a 400 ton vessel was taken across a river on a particularly
thick ice road. But it has also been used in the Arctic to make a drilling
platform: the idea there was to thicken the ice to a point where its own
weight anchored it in the shallow sea bed. So both of these have been
done. So the concept is well tested for both fresh and salt water.

A graduate student, Jason Zhou, and I looked at this on a very large scale
as a contingent means of enhancing the North Atlantic Deep Water (NADW),
the downwelling current that enables the Gulf Stream. This current failed
in the past when fresh water from glacier melt, suddenly released into the
Atlantic Ocean when an ice dam let go; the resulting ice age in Northern
Europe is referred to as the Younger Dryas period, and lasted 1200 years.
In our conceptual evaluation we assumed wind power and barges, since the
ice had to be formed in the GIN (Greenland Iceland Norway) area of the
ocean where the NADW is formed. If the object was simply to form ice cover
to restore albedo one could use ice mounted, barge mounted and land
mounted facilities.

What is safest, from an ecological impact view, is restoring arctic ice to
a pre-existing value. A step beyond that would be flooding land areas with
water in the winter to retard the ice/snow free date.

I have attached the article. If you google ice island or ice drilling
platform you will find references on the web to the arctic sea ice
thickening.

Best,

> geoengineering+bscr

[Rau, Greg]

I'd suggest wind pumps as used on the prairie to lift groundwater. Just set them up on the windy, seasonal ice sheet, drill a hole, and pump away. They'd have floats so after summer-melt out they could be rounded up by ship, hopefully sail-powered, or they could be permanently anchored to the seafloor. Net carbon/climate cost/benefit? Then there is high altitude wind: tether HAW generators to sea ice or sea floor. Use the electricity to pump seawater and/or run a pipe partway up the tether and spray seawater, making snow/aerosol for albedo effects +- snow/water for ice thickening. Better check with the seals and polar bears for preferred ice thickness. Also, biofouling of pipes, pumps, and nozzles could be a showstopper. Anyway, perhaps we should inform PCAST of this new "adaptation strategy" before their next definitive report ;-)
-Greg
________________________________________
From: geoengi...@googlegroups.com [geoengi...@googlegroups.com] on behalf of Hawkins, Dave [dhaw...@nrdc.org]
Sent: Monday, June 17, 2013 2:17 PM
To: Peter Flynn; joshuah...@gmail.com

[Emily L-B]

If some material could be added to the ice as it reforms in the winter, could a layer of ice-crete be formed in startegic places to them slow the melt and physical break-up of the ise the following summer, and use this to build multi-year ice again? Especially in the shallow coastal waters off northern Russia where ice loss is severe and methane hydrates perhaps most unstable and in need of the cooling effect if an ice layer.
I realise there are scale challenges but I hope this can be overcome when we think about other things done en masse. A local seaweed or grass might make a good substrate to do some lab tests, and then field trials. If anyone has any constructive thoughts, I am keen to hear back.
Many thanks,
Emily.
Sent from my BlackBerry

[Emily L-B]

On energy source, can the temp or pressure difference between deeper and surface water and air be used? The problem I see is keeping the kit working in hostile environemnt.

Sent from my BlackBerry

-----Original Message-----
From: "Hawkins, Dave" <dhaw...@nrdc.org>
Sender: geoengi...@googlegroups.com

[Michael Hayes]

To Emily on ice additives,

During the early years of WW2, there was a proposed for a mid atlantic iceberg as an airfield. They had a small one built in Canada. They used sawdust and did achieve year-round ice. Project Habakkuk "was a plan by the British in World War II to construct an aircraft carrier out of pykrete (a mixture of wood pulp and ice), for use against German U-boats in the mid-Atlantic, which were beyond the flight range of land-based planes at that time.".

I believe they did achieve year-round ice. The war ended as they were gearing up for a sea trial.

Best, 

[Nathan Currier]

I tried to post this question last week, when Peter and Ron were discussing Peter's idea mentioned above, but the message didn't seem to go through - forgive me if it actually did, and I'm repeating myself.  I mentioned an idea once to Mike, and I think at AMEG as well, and don't know enough to know whether it has in fact already been explored, might be feasible, etc -  and that is, not thickening ice as per Peter's plan, but possibly creating more of it, through exploiting wind patterns' effect on sea ice creation. 

What I mean is this: relatively limited parts of the Laptev sea, in particular, function something like an ice factory for the whole arctic ocean (the Laptev altogether makes more sea ice than the Barents, Kara, East Siberian and Chukchi Seas combined). This is caused by strong winds that continually advect the new ice, so that there are features like the Great Siberian Polynya, that remain ice free, and this leads to the continuous creation of a great deal of ice there. 

It is particularly northerlies that blow from the coast about due north of Tiksi, covering not that big an area, that seem to make the largest of these polynyas. So, since what you need is increased wind right at the surface to drive this effect, could you design simple passive structures that would help concentrate the wind more down along the surface, making a kind of wind tunnel phenomenon, perhaps along 50-100 miles, and in this way increase the rate of advection, and hence creation of sea ice?

All best, 

Nathan 

[Peter Flynn]

I’m not sure of the intended location of Project Habakkuk, but year round ice in the north is just thick ice. A conventional boundary for annual vs. year round ice is 3-4 m thickness:

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polar_ice_packs

 

I think a first experiment would be to see if one could make an incremental 3 m thick ice in one winter by pumping sea water on top in the winter. If so, it would obviate the need for sawdust.

 

I have no doubt that sawdust would retard melting: it was the standard insulation for block ice in ice houses when ice was cut from rivers in the winter for year round usage. However, if thickening sea ice focuses on additives it will add a layer of environmental complexity (adding sawdust to the Arctic ice cap) that can be avoided if a sufficient thickness can be achieved with the additive.

 

Peter Flynn

 

Peter Flynn, P. Eng., Ph. D.

Emeritus Professor and Poole Chair in Management for Engineers

Department of Mechanical Engineering

University of Alberta

peter...@ualberta.ca

cell: 928 451 4455

 

 

 

--

[Andrew Lockley]

Excuse a slightly off topic reply, but isn't a problem with some sea ice creation projects that they attempt to freeze salt water on top of the ice ?

Sea ice naturally forms at the bottom of ice, and the ice formed is (I understand) less salty than the sea. This can't happen with top freezing techniques.

A

[Mike MacCracken]

While sawdust worked as an insulator in block houses, those conditions were in the dark. In the real world, ice made from that would presumably be less reflective and so absorb more solar during the sunlit hours. Would it not make more sense to figure out how to make a lot of tiny bubbles to be taken up in the ice. Might not the bubbles have both an insulating and reflective effect?

Mike MacCracken

On 6/19/13 10:10 PM, "Peter Flynn" <peter...@ualberta.ca> wrote:

I’m not sure of the intended location of Project Habakkuk, but year round ice in the north is just thick ice. A conventional boundary for annual vs. year round ice is 3-4 m thickness:
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polar_ice_packs
 
I think a first experiment would be to see if one could make an incremental 3 m thick ice in one winter by pumping sea water on top in the winter. If so, it would obviate the need for sawdust.
 
I have no doubt that sawdust would retard melting: it was the standard insulation for block ice in ice houses when ice was cut from rivers in the winter for year round usage. However, if thickening sea ice focuses on additives it will add a layer of environmental complexity (adding sawdust to the Arctic ice cap) that can be avoided if a sufficient thickness can be achieved with the additive.
 
Peter Flynn
 
Peter Flynn, P. Eng., Ph. D.
Emeritus Professor and Poole Chair in Management for Engineers
Department of Mechanical Engineering
University of Alberta

peter...@ualberta.ca <mailto:peter...@ualberta.ca>
cell: 928 451 4455
 
 
 

From: geoengi...@googlegroups.com [mailto:geoengi...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Michael Hayes
Sent: June-19-13 5:10 PM
To: geoengi...@googlegroups.com
Subject: [geo] Re: Experiment Currently Taking Place in the Arctic?

 
To Emily on ice additives,

 

During the early years of WW2, there was a proposed for a mid atlantic iceberg as an airfield. They had a small one built in Canada. They used sawdust and did achieve year-round ice. Project Habakkuk "was a plan by the British <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Britain>  in World War II <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II>  to construct an aircraft carrier <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircraft_carrier>  out of pykrete <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pykrete>  (a mixture of wood pulp <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wood_pulp>  and ice <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice> ), for use against German U-boats <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U-boat>  in the mid-Atlantic <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_Ocean> , which were beyond the flight range of land-based planes at that time.".

 

I believe they did achieve year-round ice. The war ended as they were gearing up for a sea trial.

 

Best, 

 
   

On Sunday, June 16, 2013 3:39:14 PM UTC-7, Josh Horton wrote:
Hi everyone,

 

Near the end of a recent, otherwise unremarkable story about geoengineering at RTCC (link below), Piers Forster from Leeds University is quoted as follows:

 

“There is one experiment we’re currently undertaking – we’re trying to look at rescuing Arctic Ice by stimulating aeroplanes flying from Spitzbergen in Norway – and dump out a lot of Sulphur Dioxide, and we’re trying to look at that as a very short term protection against the loss of Arctic Ice."

 

(http://www.rtcc.org/scientists-warn-earth-cooling-proposals-are-no-climate-silver-bullet/)

 

Does anyone know what he is talking about?

 

Josh Horton

joshuah...@gmail.com <javascript:>

 

[eugg...@comcast.net]

Mike you are right about the bubbles. As you certainly know hair turns white because of bubbles appear in the hair as one ages. It still retains its original pigmentation and but for the bubbles would retain its coloration. Polar bear hair is not white but has bubbles so appears white. White coloration has value to arctic animals for protection but it keeps them cooler for reasons not so clearly beneficial to them.

Bubbles would provide empty space so heat conduction would be reduced.

Interesting technical challenge!

-gene

---

From: "Mike MacCracken" <mmac...@comcast.net>
To: pcf...@ualberta.ca, vogle...@gmail.com, "Geoengineering" <Geoengi...@googlegroups.com>
Cc: "Emily L-B" <em...@lewis-brown.net>
Sent: Thursday, June 20, 2013 8:26:42 AM
Subject: Re: [geo] Re: Experiment Currently Taking Place in the Arctic?

[Peter Flynn]

Based on experience with making ice islands as drilling platforms, one can make ice by spraying water into the air. On already formed ice one need not spend the energy on spraying (formation of a mist is energy intensive); rather just pump water on to the surface. In my mind this would be the object of a small test. But where there is no existing ice sheet, one could speed its formation by spraying water into the air, a technique already used in making ice islands.

 

One commenter noted that ice formed at the bottom of an ice sheet is “fresh”, and this is correct: as water crystallizes a saltier and denser brine is formed that flows down into the ocean beneath the ice sheet. But we also know that salt water does freeze: this has been demonstrated on Arctic ice islands created by spraying, and by the icing on ships. We don’t know the details of this: does salt segregate as the water crystallizes? A wonderful question for a small test on a near shore ice sheet in the far north.

 

If it is easy to incorporate air bubbles in ice, great, but it may not be needed: very thick ice islands were created as drilling platforms in one season.

 

Peter Flynn

 

 

 

From: geoengi...@googlegroups.com [mailto:geoengi...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Nathan Currier
Sent: June-19-13 11:09 PM
To: geoengi...@googlegroups.com
Subject: [geo] Re: Experiment Currently Taking Place in the Arctic?

 

I tried to post this question last week, when Peter and Ron were discussing Peter's idea mentioned above, but the message didn't seem to go through - forgive me if it actually did, and I'm repeating myself.  I mentioned an idea once to Mike, and I think at AMEG as well, and don't know enough to know whether it has in fact already been explored, might be feasible, etc -  and that is, not thickening ice as per Peter's plan, but possibly creating more of it, through exploiting wind patterns' effect on sea ice creation. 

--

[Michael Hayes]

Hi Folks,

 

Production of engineered ice on the scale that is needed makes any ice additive problematic. Yet, we should not rule them out completely as we may end up needing them. I offered up the Habakkuk project as a historical starting point on the subject of engineered ice.

Nathan's suggestion to "design simple passive structures that would help concentrate the wind...increase the rate of advection" can be prototyped easily and seems to have many advantages. Inflatable structures with carbon fiber/epoxy structural elements could be deployed on the ice edge (on a summer seasonal basis) using local commercial fishing crews as the labor. Working the leading edge of the melt zone may help slow the melt by a significant amount. Winter conditions make the year-round use of almost any wind catching structure impractical.

Rafting together and anchoring the calved ice down wind of the wind concentrators may be worth exploring as this might add to the effect. Also, staging this type of passive system over the alluvial fans of the major Arctic rivers may help cool the waters flowing over the adjacent (warming) hydrate fields (as Emily suggested).

A powered approach to the surface cooling/ice production is possible through using fleets of surface effect Coanda Effect craft. The fleet (and stationary wind concentrators) can potentially be electrically fueled using the unique geoelectromagnetic aspects of that region. With ample clean renewable energy available, Mike's and Peter's suggestions could be folded into the project. However, geoelectromagnetic conversion is a highly unique (and highly theoretical) form of energy conversion and does go well beyond the scope of this forum. Thus, it's best to deal with that issue through PM, if anyone is interested.

 

Also, simple high wind energy conversion tethers could bring a good amount of energy to the system(s), as well as provide us with a multitude of research platforms spanning from the marine environment (surface and below) up to the tropopause and possibly beyond.

As a final note, I would not initially solve for year-round operations as that would potentially put off any deployment for years and balloon the cost. Let's solve for early spring through late fall operations and get ice produced as soon as possible. Then, a more robust winter campaign can be developed. 

Best,

 

Michael

 

 
On Sunday, June 16, 2013 3:39:14 PM UTC-7, Josh Horton wrote:

[Matthias Honegger]

I contacted Edward King, author of the RTCC piece, and he confirmed the typo from 'stimulating airplanes' – whatever that would mean – to simulating.