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Local politics, the county, and the world, as viewed by Tammy Maygra Tammy’s views are her own, and do not necessarily reflect the views of Bill Eagle, his wife, his pastor, Tammy’s neighbors, Brady Preheim, Marty Rowe, President Elon Musk, President Trump, Jerry Falwell Jr., Mike Johnson, J.D. Vance, Vlad Putin, Ted Cruz, Kamala Harris, Trump’s MAGA followers, or my neighbor’s dogs. This Tammy’s Take (with the exception of this disclaimer) is not paid for or written by, or even reviewed by anyone but Tammy and she refuses to be bullied by anyone. See Bill’s Standard Disclaimer
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Sea Ice Forming On The Surface
Arctic Sea Ice
New technologies are helping to regrow Arctic sea ice.
Researchers drill a hole through the ice and insert a hydrogen-powered pump. It draws up seawater from below and discharges it onto the surface, flooding the area with a thin layer of water. Overnight this water will freeze, thickening what's already there.
Since 1979, when satellite records began, Arctic temperatures have risen nearly four times faster than the global average. Sea ice extent has decreased by about 40 percent, and the oldest and thickest ice has declined by a worrying 95 percent. What's more, scientists recently estimated that as temperatures continue to climb, the Arctic's first ice-free day could occur before 2030, in just five years' time.
Work has presented that pumping just 10 inches of ocean water on top of the ice also increases growth from the bottom, thickening it by another 20 inches. This is because the flooding process removes the insulating snow layer, enabling more water to freeze. When the process is done, the patch of ice measured up to 80 inches thick, equal to the lower range of older, multi-year ice in the Arctic.
Scientists are hoping that they can make this happen in a larger scale to make more ice through the winter, in order to gain on the ice that melts in the warmer temperatures. They hope to develop an underwater drone that could swim between locations, identifying the thickness of the ice, then pumping up water as necessary, then refueling and moving on to the next spot.
Their work is at the core of a discussion about how we mitigate the damage caused by global warming, and whether climate interferences such as this will cause more harm than good. I feel that humans have caused the climate crisis and need to stop it.
Loss of sea ice has consequences far beyond the Arctic, the vast white expanse of this ice reflects 80 percent of the sun's energy back into space. Without it, the dark open ocean will absorb this heat, further warming the planet. If our sea ice vanishes entirely, it will add the equal warming of 25 years of carbon dioxide emissions. There are also huge consequences for our weather patterns: Diminishing sea ice is already changing ocean currents, increasing storms, and sending warmer, drier air to California, causing increased wildfires. Within the Arctic, loss of ice means loss of habitat and food security for the animals, microorganisms and Indigenous people.
The changing sea ice is freezing later and thinner each year, affecting indigenous people’s ability to travel between islands. "People go missing, people are traveling and they fall through the ice. They also rely on the ice for hunting, fishing, and harvests of wild caribou or musk ox, who migrate across the frozen ocean twice a year. Animals are too falling through the thin ice and drowning in huge numbers.
Some people are worried how much it will cost and who will pay for it and run the pumps. The cost should not matter if it works, and train the people of the regions to run the pumps giving them jobs forever. The cost is estimated at $5,000 per autonomous pump. Their models predict that 500,000 pumps could rethicken about 386,000 square miles of sea ice each year, or an area half the size of Alaska. Assuming the thicker ice lasts several years, and by targeting different areas annually, the technology could maintain the current summer sea ice levels of around 1.63 million square miles.
Some people fear that the idea that developing climate engineering technologies will reduce people's desire to cut emissions. Like its a gift to the fossil fuel companies, allowing them to continue using oil, gas and coal without change. I challenge that thought.in this way. Should we allow the earth to die, people to die and animals to die because we feel we are giving fossil fuel companies a stay? The cost to the planet vs. the cost of figuring out a way to save the ice sheets and doing it, certainly outweighs the cost and fear of helping the fossil fuel companies. We need to act now and fast, if this discovery works and buys us time until we can make some advances against killing ourselves I think its worth it.
Without doing nothing our eco system will collapse, cities will be under water, food sources gone. And that mean we will be gone, but then think about it if humans were gone we wouldn’t have these issues now would we?
Tammy
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