MIT Technology Review: “The radical intervention that might save the ‘doomsday’ glacier”

More recently, they and researchers affiliated with the University of British Columbia have explored a more technical concept: constructing what they’ve dubbed “seabed anchored curtains”. These would be buoyant flexible sheets, made from geotextile material, that could hold back and redirect warm water.

The hope is that this proposal would be cheaper than the earlier ones, and that these curtains would stand up to iceberg collisions and could be removed if there were negative side effects. The researchers have modeled the use of these structures around three glaciers in Greenland, as well as the Thwaites and nearby Pine Island glaciers.

If the curtains redirected enough warm water, the eastern ice shelf of the Thwaites could begin to thicken again and firmly reattach itself to the underwater formations that have supported it for millennia, Moore says.

The idea is to return the system to its state around the early 20th century, when we know that warm water could not access the ice shelf as much as today, he wrote in an email.

They’ve explored the costs and effects of strategically placing these structures in key channels where most of the warm water flows in, and of establishing a wider curtain farther out in the bay. The latter approach would cost on the order of $50 billion. That’s a big number, but it’s not even half what one proposed seawall around New York City would cost.

James Temple

Hmm, how about we work harder on reducing carbon emissions faster, so that we won’t have to worry as much about the negative consequences? These kinds of radical engineering projects might sound exciting, but they don’t fix the root cause of glacier melting, global warming! At best they would provide a short-term reprisal (before the warming accelerates and more extreme interventions are required), at worst they are a distraction from the actual goal of creating a carbon-neutral (preferably carbon-negative) society.

Schematic of key drivers and some of their effects for the Thwaites Glacier – Amundsen Sea region

But nothing so far could top the preposterous proposal a few years ago to gene-engineer a more energy-efficient generation of human beings…