In the faint twilight of the Arctic Winter Day, the low sun crosses the frozen sea and stretches the orange fingers to drill the hole through the ice and insert the hydrogen drive pump. It seems inconspicuous, a pipe piece that protrudes from the metal cylinder, but there are many hope to protect this landscape. Soon, it sucks the sea from below and sprinkles it on the surface to flood the area with a thin water layer. This water freezes overnight, making it thicker.
Hope is more likely to disappear in the warm summer, the stronger the ice.
The Arctic temperature has risen since 1979, when satellite records began. It is almost four times faster than the global average. There is a sea ice range About 40 % decreasedAnd there is the oldest and thickest ice Reduced to 95 %worrying. Also scientists It has been estimated recently As the temperature continues to rise, the first ice -free day of the Arctic can happen in just five years before 2030.
Researchers are from Real iceThe UK -based non -profit organization is about the mission to preserve this reduced landscape. Their early work was shown to pump 10 inches of seawater over ice. This is because the flooding process removes the insulating snow layer and can freeze more water. When the process is completed, the ice patch with a thickness of up to 80 inches is as follows. Low range of more than many years of ice In the Arctic. Andrea Ceccolini, a co -CEO of Real ICE, said, “If this is a larger scale, we will show that we can actually benefit from the winter with relatively small energy, and his partner CECCOLINI and CIAN SHERWIN ultimately swim between positions. We develop, detect the thickness of the ice, pump the water as needed, and then move to the next point.
This winter, they did the biggest field test. Eight pumps were compared to eight pumps over almost 0.5 miles on the Cambridge Bay Coast, a small town in the Kitikmeot area of NUNAVUT, part of the Canadian Arctic. They are now waiting for the results by June.
Their work is at the heart of the debate about how to alleviate the damage caused by global warming and whether such climate intervention causes more harm than the line.
The loss of the sea ice has a much more than the North Pole. Today, the vast white expansion of this ice 80 %of solar energy returns to space.. Without it, the dark open sea absorbs this heat to warm the earth. San Diego University of California’s Scripps Oceanography Added equal warming of 25 years of carbon dioxide emissions. It has a big impact on the weather pattern. Reducing sea ice is already Changing,,, StormSend warm and dry air to California, Forest fires increase. Loss of ice in the Arctic means habitat and food security loss of animals, microorganisms and indigenous communities.
“Personally, I’m scared.” Every year, it affects the community’s ability to travel around the island. “People are missing, people are traveling and fall through ice.” She keeps saying. They also rely on ice for hunting, fishing and harvesting wild reindeer or musk bulls that cross the frozen sea twice a year. It is gradually falling and drowning through thin ice.
MAKSAGAK helped Real ICE to talk to the community about their research, and she supports their work. “If you present this genius plan, which actually wants to freeze ice freezing, I think it will be very beneficial to future generations.”
There are still many questions about the feasibility of Real ICE’s plan for both critics and actual ice researchers. First, they must establish whether the principle works scientifically. In the worst case, adding woven seawater allows the ice to melt faster in summer. But last year’s findings are as follows. Three months later, when the pilot ice was tested, Real ICE found that salinity was in a normal range.
If you go well with this year’s test, the next step will be an independent environmental risk assessment. Noise is one problem. According to WWF Industrial under noise greatly changes the behavior of marine mammals.Especially whales. Similarly, blue Daegu puts eggs under the ice, birds grow, and larger mammals and birds move across. How will it be affected by the water pump of Real ICE? “This is all the questions we should ask.”
Fitzgerald predicts that a non -profit organization requires four more years before it recommends technology. NUNAVUT Impact Review Board is currently NUNAVUT’s environmental evaluation agency Real ICE’s research site does not have a big impact..
But critics about this idea argue that the process will not expand. “The number does not accumulate,” said Martin Sieger, the former co -chairman of the Grantham Institute for Climate Change. He on average pointed out the size of the 3.9 million square miles, and how many pumps would be necessary to freeze 10 %of them. More importantly, who will pay it?
Ceccolini is separated by the first question. Their technology is not complicated. “The technology of 50 years ago must be assembled in a new way.” The cost of about $ 5,000 per autonomous pump. Their model predicts that every year 500,000 pumps can be reconstructed about 386,000 square miles of sea ice or half of Alaska. Assuming that thicker ice lasted for several years, CECCOLINI estimates that this technology can maintain the current summer interpretation level. 163 million square miles. “We’ve been doing much bigger in humanity, and it was much more complicated.”
As for someone who pays, it is not clear. One idea is a global fund Similar to the proposed rainforestIf resources are advantageous around the world, such as Amazon or the Arctic, the international community contributes to protection. Another idea is “cooling credit.” Here, the organization can offset a certain amount of ice because of offsetting of global warming. These are controversial ideas that Make Sunsets, a California -based geo engineering start -up, started, the aerosol injection of this earth is another way of cooling the earth to release reflective particles to the earth. However, the study is a lot of danger and unknown Did you worry about the scientific community?And even did it Forbidden in Mexico. Meanwhile, the Faith on the Credits system for the credit system has been damaged in recent years, and some surveys have shown that the carbon credit industry lacks integrity.
Panganga Pungowiyi, the organizer of the Aboriginal Environmental Network, a non -profit organization for environmental and economic justice issues, is in principle against cooling and carbon credits in principle and explains that we oppose us. [Indigenous] Value system. ” “This helps the fossil fuel industry avoids responsibility and helps to harm more pain, lung disease, and more cancers in other indigenous communities.”
This reaches the core of the discussion. Whether it should be done such a solution. Inuit opinion is divided. Pungowiyi says that Maksagak supports real ice, but this technology is not consistent with indigenous values and is concerned about the potential damage of expansion. In addition to environmental issues, Pungowiyi has historically outsiders, often men and men Increased physical and sexual assault on Aboriginal womenAfter all Miss or murder. It is clear that CECCOLINI and Sherwin know that danger, and that scaling of technology will be achieved in cooperation with the community. They hope that the project will eventually be indigenous.
Sherwin said, “We do not want to repeat the mistakes made by Western researchers and organizations.
Real ICE is not the only company to protect the Arctic. Arctic reflexSvalbard, a Dutch company, is conducting a similar ice research. that Arctic Ice Project We are evaluating whether the glass beads spread over the ice can increase the reflectance and protect them from melting. Engineer Huh Hunt Marine Cloud Brightening Initiative The goal is to increase the reflectance of the clouds through the spray particles of sea salt as a way to protect ice.
“I think that this idea is so prominent in relation to their reliability and maturity, and SEIGERT pointed out that this technology is not only demonstrated, and people are already making policy decisions based on success, which is known as” moral danger. ” “This is like a gift to fossil fuel companies.” TolarbonateAnd we need all the effort to do so. It is a problem to be distracted from it. ”
When Cambridge University, Fitzgerald, asked about moral danger, “This is a powerful claim.” I am worried about it. Perhaps it is probably the risk of two less evils, not going to do this.
Or, as Sherwin said, “What is the cost of non -activity?”
Those who support climate intervention strategy emphasize that bulletproofing is important, but it is moving too slow and lacks political will. The same technology as Real ICE has developed more time. Paul Beckwith, a climate system analyst at Ottawa University 3 approach: Remove fossil fuel, remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and protect the Arctic.
Sherwin said, “There should be less conversation on the other and we must run all three pillars at the same time.” Unfortunately, we are in a position to face collapse if we protect and restore the ecosystem.
