Burning All Fossil Fuels could Thaw Antarctica, Raise Seas-Study
Burning all the world's fossil fuel reserves could thaw the entire Antarctic ice sheet and push up world sea levels by more than 50 metres (160 feet), over thousands of years, an international study said on Friday. Such a melt, also eliminating the far smaller ice sheet on Greenland, is a worst case of climate change that would inundate cities from New York to Shanghai and change maps of the world with much of the Netherlands, Bangladesh or Florida under water. "Burning the currently attainable fossil fuel resources is sufficient to eliminate the (Antarctic) ice sheet," the scientists wrote in the journal Science Advances. Antarctica contains ice equivalent to 58 metres of sea level rise.
Arctic Whitening Might Help Ice But Not Climate
The attempt to artificially whiten the surface of the Arctic Ocean and offset climate change will not be able to reduce global temperatures substantially. It could in principle help restore some amount of sea ice, says a research based on model configurations. It has been proposed that disastrous climate effects could be offset by technological approaches, broadly called geoengineering. One geoengineering proposal is to artificially whiten the surface of the Arctic Ocean in order to increase the reflection of the Sun's energy into space and restore sea ice in the area. Ocean whitening involves floating white grains or producing micro bubbles on the surface of the sea to reflect some of the sun's heat back into space.
Bill Gates Invests in Hurricane Technology
According to a USA Today report, five U.S. Patent and Trade Office patent applications, made public on July 9, propose slowing hurricanes by pumping cold, deep-ocean water in their paths from barges. If issued, the patents offer 18 years of legal rights to the idea for Bill Gates and co-inventors, including climate scientist Ken Caldeira of the Carnegie Institution of Washington. (Source: USA Today)
