Spend $500 billion to “Refreeze” the melting Arctic: Science

Mumbai, April 14: The world is spending a lot of money in an attempt to reverse the effects of climate change. Investments are being made to fund the creation of emission-free vehicles, infrastructure is being built to support sustainability, research is being conducted to find new sources of non-carbon-emitting energy, and technology is being developed to prevent us from feeling the full brunt of a deteriorating environment.

Now, a group of scientists wants to add $500 billion to the climate change war chest.

Due to climate change, the Arctic has been experiencing unseasonably warm weather that’s causing the ice to melt. The money the scientists are asking for would go toward building 10 million wind-powered pumps that will bring water from beneath the ice to the surface in an effort to refreeze the Arctic. In theory, the water that is pumped to the surface will automatically freeze in the below-zero temperatures and thus add to the ice sheet’s thickness.

The scientists behind the paper estimate that these wind-powered pumps will have to be deployed across 10 percent of the region. They believe they’d need 100 million tons of steel to build the pumps over the course of 10 years. If they could do that, they think they could restore the Arctic to what is was roughly 15 years ago.

Whether or not this is the plan that will solve the Arctic crisis, it’s important that we find some solution soon. According to studies, if we do nothing about the world’s carbon emissions and let the Arctic continue on as it is, summer Arctic sea ice will disappear by 2030.