Science

Arctic breakthrough: Scientist develops bizarre plan to save melting ice


The Arctic ice cap, an expanse of frozen seawater sitting atop of our planet, helps to regulate the delicate ecosystem of Earth. However, temperatures in the Arctic are rising at twice the pace of anywhere else in the world, while its permanent ice cover is being reduced by 10 per cent each decade. It is feared by 2100 summers in the most northern points of the globe could be free of ice.

The loss of ice affects life worldwide. Not only will melting ice caps contribute to rising sea levels, Earth will lose the ability to reflect sunlight back into the atmosphere. Without it the world will get hotter more rapidly.

This is why one researcher has come up with a simple yet effective way of dealing with the staggering loss of melting ice.

Dr Leslie Field of Stanford University has established a company called Ice911.

The company has plans to spread billions of hollow, glass microspheres across the ice in the most northern parts of our globe.

These tiny specks of glass could act as if they were ice, reflecting the sunlight back into space.

Ice911 said on its website: “We’ve spent the past decade testing and developing material approaches that could be used to make young, thin ice reflective.

“We now focus on using reflective hollow microspheres, which can be thought of as a kind of white, floating sand, chosen for its safety and practicality.

“This acts as a thin reflective layer on Arctic ice. This slows the melt and helps young, thin ice act more like multiyear, reflective ice.

READ MORE: Arctic SHOCK: Scientists left baffled after strange discovery

“It’s a safe form of the material, large, amorphous and round enough to not cause harm to living creatures or the environment.

“And this material is bright and reflective, not like a transparent glass lens, but like reflective white sand or snow.”

Dr Field added: “I don’t want this to be an excuse for coal mines, I don’t want people to say, ‘We don’t have to change a thing because the engineers will fix it.”

However, she did state that Ice911’s product is “urgent and demonstrable”.



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