Can We Re-Freeze the Artic?

I’m not much of a Scientist. In fact, I am not one at all. I am a paperless writer & blogger. In high school, I was not keen on chemistry or Physics or Mathematics, because my grades weren’t all that great. I just found them so mentally tedious and uninspiring. Let’s just say, applied Science isn’t really my thing. However, I love seeing what science can accomplish. From medical breakthroughs to technological innovations designed to save energy, science has brought a lot of good to our world.

Due to my affinity to the Science world and my passion for saving our beloved planet (to save ourselves), I try to keep myself updated with new research development as regards Climate change. Recently, something caught my eye on National Geographic, so, of course I had to blog about it. According to the article, “A team of scientists from Arizona State University have proposed a crazy plan to save the shrinking sea ice in the Arctic. They suggest that by building millions of wind-powered water pumps on the polar ice cap, we could replenish and thicken the ice every winter.”

One of the consequences that Climate change has come with, is the melting of Arctic ice caps. Arctic sea ice goes through stages annually. During the winter, the ice thickens and spreads, and then proceeds to melt during the summer time. However, because of the incidence of Global warming, the ice caps has been decreasing in size. Evidently, the ice has been melting more than it has been freezing.

Arctic ice cover has been reducing at a worrisome rate- about 13 percent every decade. And, it can even get worse!

The scientists propose that if water is pumped onto the surface of the ice, a metre of thickness can be replenished each winter and that could remarkably slow down the erosion of the polar cap.

The researchers determined that their strategy would cover just 10 percent of the Arctic, and would require 10 million pumps, which would be pumping 27 tonnes of water per hour.

“This water must be pumped using local energy sources, which in the Arctic winter means using wind,” they write. “Fortunately, wind is plentiful in the Arctic.”

This project, with its astonishing number of pumps, would cost roughly $650 million. I know! It would be ridiculously expensive and extremely difficult to execute. But even if we did undergo this project, they stressed that IT WOULD STILL NOT BE SUFFICIENT to combat the issues of anthropogenic Climate change.

Honestly, I commend these Scientists for even coming up with this project, even though all the details of it haven’t been completely worked out yet. It initiates a discussion. A discussion about Climate change that we can never have enough of.

 Projects like this only make it more glaring that the battle of climate change is one that has to be fought long and hard. And, although, we all have parts to play in it by going paperless, reducing our carbon footprint and leading a more ecofriendly life (as I always write about on this paperless blog), the problem is bigger than us. WE have allowed this problem to escalate to something bigger than us. It is no longer an individual fight or even a communal one, it is a WORLDWIDE one, the scale of which should not be overlooked. The world needs to open its eyes and see that it is gradually crumbling at its very feet. And, will continue to do so if massive changes aren’t made and put into place. Countries, and their leaders, world organizations and their investors. Everyone, and I do mean EVERYONE needs to band together to defeat this climatic demon. If a $650 million dollar project won’t be able to do enough, can you imagine how much more work we have left?

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