- Geoengineers plan to test a giant underwater curtain that could slow the melting of devastating glaciers.
- Thwaites, also known as the “Glacier of the End,” has lost more than 1 trillion tons of ice since 2000.
- If the Thwaites Range were to completely collapse, global sea levels would eventually rise by about 10 feet.
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A few feet of sea level rise may not sound like a big deal. But if sea levels rose by two feet around the world, the impact on coastal communities would be devastating.
Cities such as New York, Miami, and New Orleans will experience devastating flooding. 97 million people around the world will enter rapidly flooding waterways, putting their homes, communities and livelihoods at risk.
That’s what will happen if Thwaites Glacier, also known as the “Doomsday Glacier,” collapses. But that’s not all.
Currently, this giant Antarctic ice shelf prevents warm ocean water from reaching other glaciers. If the Thwaites Range collapses, it could trigger a melt cascade that could cause sea levels to rise an additional 10 feet.
Already, Thwaites melting contributes to 4% of global sea level rise. Since 2000, more than 1 trillion tons of ice has been lost in the Thwaites Islands. But glaciers aren’t the only ones in trouble, and time is running out to save them.
That’s why geoengineers are developing techniques to slow the melting of glaciers.
The latest strategy is curtains. Yes, it’s an underwater curtain. John Moore, a glaciologist and geoengineering researcher at the University of Lapland, wants to install a giant 62-mile-long underwater curtain to prevent warm seawater from reaching the glaciers and melting them. .
But it will take $50 billion to make that happen.
The end of glacier melting
One of the main causes of glacier melting is the flow of warm, salty seawater deep in the ocean. For example, these warm currents hit the sides of the Thwaites River and melt the thick ice that prevents the shelf edge from collapsing.
As the oceans warm due to climate change, these intrusive currents will increasingly erode the Thwaites River, bringing it closer to complete collapse.
Moore and his colleagues are looking into the possibility of anchoring a curtain to the Amundsen sea floor to slow the melting process.
In theory, these curtains would block the flow of warm currents into the Thwaites Range, halting melting and giving 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 in 2018. The idea is to use a huge wall to shut off the hot water.
But Moore says curtains are a safer option.
As effective as they are at blocking warm currents, they are much easier to remove if needed, he explained.
For example, if curtains cause unexpected damage to the local environment, they can be removed and redesigned.
“Any intervention should be reversible on second thought,” Moore said.
It will still be decades before Moore and his colleagues deploy the technology to save the Thwaites family, but they are currently testing prototypes on a small scale.
50 billion dollar idea
Moore said his colleagues at the University of Cambridge are already in the very early stages of developing and testing a prototype, which could move to the next stage as early as the summer of 2025.
Now, researchers at the University of Cambridge are testing a 3-foot-long version of this technology in an aquarium. Once it’s proven functional, Moore said it would be tested on the River Cam, either by installing it on the riverbed or by towing it behind a boat.
Moore said the idea is to gradually scale up the prototype until there is evidence that the technology is stable enough to deploy in Antarctica.
If all goes well, a set of 33-foot-long prototype curtains could be tested in a Norwegian fjord in about two years.
“What we want to know is, what could possibly go wrong? And if there’s no solution, ultimately we have no choice but to give up,” Moore said. “But there’s also a lot of motivation to make it work.”
As the scale increases, so does the need for funding. This year’s experiment will cost about $10,000. But Moore and his colleagues will need about $10 million to get to the point where they can confidently implement the technology.
And actually installing a curtain over the Amundsen Sea would require an additional $50 billion.
“That sounds like a big deal,” Moore said. “But weigh risk against risk. The cost of protecting ocean surfaces around the world, just for coastal defense, is expected to be around $50 billion per year per meter of sea level rise.”
While some coastal cities, such as New York, have the budget to adapt to rising sea levels, others do not.
“One of the big drivers for us is this social justice perspective, which is that this is a much fairer way to deal with sea level rise than just saying, ‘We should spend this money on adaptation.’ ,” Moore said.
race against time
data shows Thwaites Glacier and similar glaciers are melting at an unprecedented rate due to climate change. However, the question of when it will break up is still a matter of debate among glaciologists.
“I don’t know if that’s really the case. [the Thwaites] “It could collapse tomorrow, it could collapse in 10 years, it could collapse in 50 years,” Moore said, adding, “We need to collect better data.”
But collecting better data may take time that these glaciers don’t have.
Supporters of glacial geoengineering like Moore believe the time to intervene is now. Other experts disagree, arguing that reducing carbon emissions is the only viable way to slow glacier melt.
Reducing emissions is essential to mitigating the effects of climate change, but Moore isn’t confident they can be reduced significantly or fast enough to save the Thwaites family. Once a tipping point is reached, he says, “then glaciers no longer care what humans want to do with their emissions.”
“At that point, you’ll need the other tools that come in the box.”