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Zainab Calcuttawala

Zainab Calcuttawala

Zainab Calcuttawala is an American journalist based in Morocco. She completed her undergraduate coursework at the University of Texas at Austin (Hook’em) and reports on…

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Could 10,000 Wind-Powered Water Pumps Save The Arctic Cap From Melting?

A team of scientists from Arizona State University have devised a water pumping system that would reverse the devastating effects of climate change in the Arctic ice cap, according to a new report by The Guardian.

Physicist Steven Desch and a team of his colleagues from the desert university propose constructing 10 million wind-powered pumps in the Arctic, where they would pump up water that would freeze on the surface, in turn reinforcing the cap.

The technique could add an extra meter of ice to the current slab covering the North Pole, which rarely exceeds two to three meters in thickness in its current state. Ongoing erosion eats away at the layer every day.

Thicker ice would mean longer-lasting ice. In turn, that would mean the danger of all sea ice disappearing from the Arctic in summer would be reduced significantly,” Desch told the Observer.

The $500 billion plan would slow down the effects of the rise in the Earth’s average temperature, which is occurring at two times the rate previous models have predicted, The Guardian noted.

Our only strategy at present seems to be to tell people to stop burning fossil fuels,” says Desch. “It’s a good idea but it is going to need a lot more than that to stop the Arctic’s sea ice from disappearing.”

Related: Natural Gas Prices Fall To 3 Month Lows On Disappointing Inventory Draw

Those involved in designing the project believe that even commitments made by the international community in the 2015 Paris agreement will be insufficient to prevent the planet from heating up, causing droughts, floods and other natural disasters. By 2030, the Arctic could lose all of its sea ice.

The situation is causing grave concern,” says Professor Julienne Stroeve, of University College London. “It is now much more dire than even our worst case scenarios originally suggested.’

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  • Roger Spring on February 20 2017 said:
    It's evident these professors know little about working in an Arctic environment. The windmills will need special lubricants and metals, greatly increasing the cost of each windmill. Sea water will need to travel on heated piping and whoa be unto the labor when pumps go down in sub zero weather. An arctic environment isn't a place for windmills... Servicing these windmills and pumps will also require small towns be built... This is an idiots boondoggle..,.
  • Dan on February 20 2017 said:
    While the fake news climate change insanity continues, look instead to changing magnetic field. This idea of pumps is stupid stuff. A horrible waste of taxpayer money, the colleges I mean and the pumps. College education has become overpriced insanity.
  • stevansky on February 19 2017 said:
    While we're asking wonder if they can stop a hurricane, or dampen an earthquake, make it rain, or better yet blow away the smoke and mirrors that the eco-alarmists have been hiding behind all these years. As usual much ado about nothing.
  • David Riley on February 19 2017 said:
    Where in the world do people like Zainab come from. He obviously knows nothing about much of anything. Man is not capable of competing with nature. The earth warms and cools at the will of the sun and internal forces of nature. The guy needs to earn an honest living and stop running this scam on the public. Only liberal progressive Democrats are brain dead enough to fall for this line of crap.
  • Busker on February 19 2017 said:
    Sorry, was meant for April 1st !
  • Klaas on February 18 2017 said:
    How would they separate the salt out? When ocean ice freezes naturally the salt falls out of it, you could melt it and drink it. If you sprayed this on the ice cap it would freeze but the salt would melt the ice underneath if i am thinking about this correct.
  • Roger Spring on February 18 2017 said:
    That is the silliest idea. To begin with, current windmills would not work in those temperatures, special lubricants, metals and electronics would have to be developed, raising the expense of each windmill enormously. Small cities would have to be built to service and maintain these windmills. Heated pipes would be required to move the water as sea water freezes. Anytime a pump goes down, water in the lines would freeze. This has disaster written all over it.
  • JHM on February 18 2017 said:
    Ah, so now we have a replacement cost for artic ice, $500B.

    What else could we do with $500B?

    Tesla, LG Chem and others could build out gigafactories to produce 5 TWh of batteries each year, enough to replace 50 mb/d of oil consumption with renewables.

    These batteries go into both vehicles and the grid. 15 TWh of annual capacity (10 TWh for vehicles and 5 TWh for the grid) should suffice to eliminate fossil fuel consumption from the planet halting the build of CO2 in the atmosphere, oceans and biosphere. So 5 TWh is one third of what is needed to halt carbon-induced climate change.

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