Sign In
SHARE
Climate Engineering Proposal of the Day
Freeman Dyson waxes imaginative in the NYRB:
Snow-dumping in East Antarctica would be a good way to stop sea levels from rising... East Antarctica is much colder and larger than Greenland and West Antarctica, and the ice cap on East Antarctica is not in danger of melting. A permanent high-pressure anticyclone over East Antarctica keeps the air over the continent dry and the snowfall meager. The same anticyclone keeps a strong westerly flow of moist air circling around the southern ocean.
To dump snow onto East Antarctica, we must move the center of the anticyclone from the center to the edge of the continent. This could be done by deploying a giant array of tethered kites or balloons so as to block the westerly flow on one side only. The blockage would cause a local rise of atmospheric pressure. The center of the anticyclone would move toward the blockage, and a fraction of the circulating westerly winds on the opposite side of Antarctica would move from the ocean onto the continent. The kites or balloons might also be used to generate massive quantities of electric power for use in other projects of planetary engineering. With or without electric generators, the onshore flow of moist air at a rate of a few kilometers per hour would produce an average snowfall equivalent to a few meters of ice per year over East Antarctica. All the ice added to the continent would be subtracted from the ocean. This would be enough snowfall to counteract the sea-level rise produced by a complete meltdown of Greenland and West Antarctica in two hundred years. Year by year, we could raise or lower the kites and adjust the flow of moist air across the continent so as to hold sea levels accurately constant.
Even Dyson admits that this idea is "fanciful". But I do wonder whether, once the balloons have been installed and are viewable from space, their different colors won't spell out the Google logo.
(Via Thoma)
Loading...
Thank you for registering as a Portfolio.com Insider. Your comment has been added.
Create Your Public Profile
- The Times' Rorshach Geithner Story
- Apr 27 2009 9:26AM EDT
- Sinking Animal Spirits
- Apr 27 2009 8:45AM EDT
- Counter-cyclical Urban Policy
- Apr 26 2009 10:00AM EDT
- Be Your Own Counterfeiter
- Apr 26 2009 9:36AM EDT
- Being Tim Geithner
- Apr 25 2009 12:37PM EDT
- Notes From a Press Conference Naif
- Apr 25 2009 9:41AM EDT
- What Good is the News?
- Apr 25 2009 8:32AM EDT
- Stressful Enough
- Apr 24 2009 2:29PM EDT
- Not Regretting the Pound
- Apr 24 2009 1:09PM EDT
- Introducing the New Ford Squeeze
- Apr 24 2009 9:47AM EDT
- Non-Economic Questions of the Day
- Apr 24 2009 9:12AM EDT
- The Stress Test Blind Alley
- Apr 24 2009 8:36AM EDT
- Happy Hour
- Apr 23 2009 9:40PM EDT
- Recovery Without Rebalancing
- Apr 23 2009 6:13PM EDT
- The Shape of Your Recession
- Apr 23 2009 5:11PM EDT
Archive
Categories
Links
- Email Ryan Avent
- Econospeak
- Financial Crookery
- The Epicurean Dealmaker
- Naked Capitalism
- Alphaville
- Marginal Revolution
- The Panelist
- FP Passport
- Overcoming Bias
- Andrew Leonard
- Barry Ritholtz
- Brad Setser
- Carbon Tax Center
- Calculated Risk
- Greg Mankiw
- Free Exchange
- Dean Baker
- Alexander Campbell
- Kash Mansori
- The Bayesian Heresy
- A Fistful of Euros
- John Quiggin
- Michael Mandel
- Lance Knobel
- Mark Thoma
- Dan Gross
- Curbed
- Streetsblog
- Chris Anderson
- Deal Journal
- MarketBeat
- DealBook
- DealBreaker
- Carl Bialik
- Michelle Leder
- Brad DeLong
- Ultimi Barbarorum
