Integrating Oceanic Iron Fertilization (OIF) Strategies
William S. Clarke
The overall objective is to develop ways by which the nutrient-deficient areas
of the global ocean can be made to offset global warming, extreme weather
events, and ocean acidification. Different strategies are required at different
locations. This is indirectly supported by the Royal Society publication Ocean
fertilization: a potential means of geoengineering by Lampitt et al. (2008)
http://rsta.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/366/1882/3919.full.
In Processes and patterns of oceanic nutrient limitation
http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v6/n9/full/ngeo1765.html Moore et al.
(2013) provide information regarding which elements are likely to be limiting in
a variety of ocean and seasonal environments, and hence provide evidence
for the selections of the following strategies.
Prospective methods, most of which come under these different strategies,
might well include the following. First, the phosphate-rich, but iron and silica
poor, areas of ocean south of 42 degrees South, together with some Arctic
and sub-Arctic waters, can be addressed with buoyant flakes carrying ultraslow release iron and silica minerals to generate marine biomass and carbon
biosequestration. Second, the highly stratified and nutrient-impoverished
seas of the Caribbean and many tropical waters may possibly be addressed
using flakes bearing a mix of nutrients, chief of which are phosphate wastes
(from Florida, Morocco and Australia), iron and silica. Whilst this should help
to transport dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) somewhat deeper into sea, its
main functions will be to generate increased albedo and additional marine
biomass, and to make some contribution to reducing ocean surface
acidification, ocean surface temperature and consequently hurricane strength.
Third, some favourable tropical locations may use Ocean Thermal Energy
Conversion (OTEC) pumping mechanisms to generate power, potable water
and uplifted nutrient-rich waters for mariculture operations. Others may use
anchored buoy-borne wind turbines. Fourth, the temperature/nutrient/ salinity
stratified waters of the Gulf of Mexico, with their excessively-nutriated benthic
waters (from the Mississippi) and often impoverished surface waters, together
with oceans where the needed nutrients can be found in deep water, are
probably best addressed by wave or wind powered pumping mechanisms.
These both bring nutrients to the surface where they can be used by
phytoplankton and cool the surface by moving warm, surface water deeper.
Fifth, Arctic waters may best be addressed using buoy-mounted, wind
turbine-powered pumps having two functions. The first of these is to pump
seawater onto newly-formed sea-ice or previously formed floes. This serves to
thicken, and eventually to ground, new ice-mountains that will both increase
Arctic albedo and reduce methane emissions. Ice dams thus formed across
river mouths should also help to cap with ice areas that otherwise are
commencing to emit greenhouse gases. The second function is used in the
warmer months to pump nutrient-rich benthic waters to the surface where
their nutrients are taken up by phytoplankton. Sixth, temperate oceans will
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need to be treated differentially, depending on the mix of the nutrient
concentrations in their water columns. And seventh, productive ocean areas,
coral reefs, seagrass meadows, and most inshore waters should typically not
be treated at all, except conceivably when there are seasonal or otherwise
temporary nutrient deficiencies that might beneficially be offset by the use of
flakes. In many ocean regions various combinations of these methods will be
optimal. A particularly useful combination will be that of flakes to complement
the nutrients that are brought up from the mesodepths of a given ocean region
by wave and wind-powered pumps supported on anchored hollow ferroconcrete buoys. We may have to employ most of these methods and
combinations to have some chance of avoiding looming global catastrophes.
The challenges are wicked ones. However, with some further study, modeling,
experimentation, refinement and quantification, the buoyant flake concept can
avoid the more intransigent roadblocks to success.
We do not need to navigate all the roadblocks at once. Instead, we can just
select the easiest ones to address, provided that solving them leads to
deployable results. Whilst the equations that build the case for any particular
solution are important, equally important to get right are the parameters to be
input to the equations. These are best confirmed by experiment and modeling,
followed by approved, transparent, and cautiously-scaling trials.
Caribbean Experiment
Whilst climate engineering operations in the Southern Ocean show the most
promise, these are very costly to undertake. More modest approaches are
preferred initially. The easiest problem to address from the above list is that of
testing whether a small amount of buoyant flakes, carrying a phosphate and
iron-rich fertilizer mix and possibly some seed organisms, is capable of
causing a substantial increment in ocean surface albedo for an extended
period in the oligotrophic and highly stratified surface waters of the Caribbean.
This can be twinned with an assessment of what additional marine biomass is
produced and how much this reduces surface ocean acidification when done
intensively. The increase in albedo might be translated both theoretically and
practically into its cooling (or at least reduction in warming) and extreme
weather mitigation effects, should the method be deployed more widely.
Whilst this experiment might not attract industry investment, it could well
attract philanthropic and government attention and funding, particularly if
performed in the Caribbean approaches of hurricanes. A secondary outcome
of likely interest to both industry and governments would be the potential
increase in marine catch and royalties.
Three good things about this approach are: that initial scientific trials can be
small enough not to require international approval; that the flakes can be
formulated to make up what is deficient at each test site (nitrates excluded);
and that the experiments are best not conducted in distant, dangerous and
season-limited Southern Ocean waters. A suitable fertilizer mix for this
purpose might be formulated mainly from phosphatic clays slimes and sandy
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wastes (select those at the silty end of the sand-silt grain size spectrum) from
Florida that also include substantial amounts of calcium, silica, and iron, plus
some finely-ground ore(s) containing manganese, cobalt, copper, zinc, nickel
and cadmium, which are the other six micronutrients most likely to become
limiting (in roughly that order) in surface waters. As iron, molybdenum, nickel
and cobalt are required for nitrogen fixation, the ore mix in the flake should
also include molybdenum in case this should become limiting following a
major increase in the diazotroph concentration of surface waters following
flake fertilization. The overburden and country rock wastes associated with
the Floridan phosphate deposits frequently also contain significant
concentrations of useful trace metals and metalloids, such as Fe, Cd, Cu, Mo,
Ni and Zn, as well as them often having some appreciable phosphorus
content. Although these wastes will not all be in a finely-divided state, many of
them might still prove to be useful components to include in flake fertilizer mix.
Although this particular use of flake fertilizer would require much higher
concentrations of flakes on the sea surface, the method still appears viable.
Confirmation, or otherwise, would follow parametric experiments, operational
modeling and limited trials.
As the main macronutrient supplement, phosphate, would be released over a
shorter period than a year, the husks would not need to be as durable or as
siliceous as rice husks. Hence, North American grain husks of wheat, barley
and oats might suffice, and the lignin might be derived from the straw. Thus,
the Mississippi River, the MidWest grain belt, New Orleans, Tampa and
Florida’s phosphate clay wastes might beneficially replace their Chinese
equivalents.
The cost of these US-made flakes delivered to Caribbean waters is expected
to be approximately $100/tonne, which is a little more than the cost of
Chinese flakes delivered to Southern Ocean waters. These have been
estimated in a separate paper to be approximately USD$84/tonne. A tonne of
US flakes will carry the equivalent of 22kg of P2O5, or approximately 10kg of
phosphorus, together with the other phytoplankton-useful components of
phosphatic clay wastes that include silica/silicates, calcium, iron and
potassium. The husks will also include an amount of opalline silica, useful to
diatoms. Should it be useful, to these nutrients being disseminated may be
added (or disseminated concurrently) a minor additional amount of potash
(~KCl) and seed amounts of the microorganisms: diazotrophs, diatoms and
microalgae. Allowances for these possible additions are included in the cost.
It should be noted that Wikipedia records that the Trichodesmium species of
diazotrophs are the only known diazotrophs able to fix nitrogen in daylight
under aerobic conditions without the use of the heterocyst cells that are
needed by all other filamentous, nitrogen-fixing cyanobacteria.
Trichodesmium and other diazotrophs provide nitrogenous nutrients that can
support complex microenvironments and hence species up the food chain.
Because filamentous diazotrophs possess gas vesicles, they will likely remain
in close proximity to the buoyant flakes and thereby be in a good location
preferentially to access the slowly dissolving phosphate and iron.
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The minor amount of radioactive minerals it contains is not expected to cause
a major problem, particularly as most will soon sink to the ocean floor and be
buried. The source phosphate rock was itself originally deposited from an
earlier, shallow ocean.
A preliminary estimation of financial viability of the method is desirable. Using
the mineral ratio of phosphorus found in the edible parts of autumn herring
(0.25%) as representing all marine biomass, it is calculated that from each
tonne of flake disseminated, approximately four tonnes of additional marine
biomass would potentially be generated. Allowing 80% for losses and taking
the average price received by Norwegian fishers in 2012/13 for their herring of
$1,040/tonne, this could mean that an investment of $100 in flake could
generate $832 worth of marine catch. Even after taking out the cost of
harvesting, monitoring, royalties and overheads, this would appear to be a
viable business, provided that the fertilizing agency can garner the additional
catch benefit. There would also be the additional public benefits of increased
albedo resulting in global cooling and extreme weather mitigation (the
amounts of which are each to be modeled subsequent to experimental results
providing accurate parameters). Ocean surface de-acidification and carbon
sequestration (caused mainly by lignin sedimentation and DIC transportation
downwards) might provide additional modeled benefits.
Prior to any trials of this concept, the science first needs to be vetted (and
possibly adjusted) by independent scientists. Furthermore, there should be
biogeochemical modeling and lab tests performed to optimize flake
composition and structure and to confirm that such fertilization should work
and is likely to have net beneficial effects.
Regarding approvals, small-scale scientific trials are already encouraged by
reputable scientific bodies, and anyway, the trials would be below the
threshold of ones requiring international approval. Should these trials confirm
by practice and modeling that, when extended to global nutrient-deficient
waters, the technique should have a significant global cooling effect, then,
once the costs and logistics have been established, a solid basis for seeking
scientific, industrial, governmental and public support for progressively wider
deployments will have been developed. These might be initiated individually
by several of the Caribbean island governments, or, perhaps better, done in
concert with other nations under international scientific supervision.
Garnering public support for later stage trials may not be as nearly impossible
as it seems. First, no nation will be asked to bear the costs, as industry will do
it for profit under international scientific modeling and scrutiny. Second, the
trials can start well below mesoscale level, be conducted in jurisdictional
waters, and should meet LC/LP requirements as interpreted by each trialing
nation. And third, by then all may well be experiencing even more severe
fallouts from global warming.
Following these limited trials, industrial partners could then proceed with
developing options, business cases and strategies for successively navigating
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the remaining roadblocks. Together, they could investigate the viability or
otherwise of: ocean carbon credits, plume royalties, marine cloud brightening,
ocean de-acidification, extreme weather moderation, and global warming
reversal within fifteen years - all measured against progressive targets set by
sophisticated models.
Arctic Experiment
If seawater is pumped onto sea-ice during cold times, it spreads out and freezes,
see https://www.see.ed.ac.uk/~shs/Hurricanes/Flynn%20downwelling.pdf
Zhou & Flynn (2005) paper Geoengineering Downwelling Ocean Currents: a cost
assessment. This process also serves to radiate more heat off-planet, because
more heat is given off as more ice freezes quickly without the insulating effect of
other ice above it. Should the discharge continue, then an iceberg or ice
mountain forms in a way similar to which volcanoes form mountains, except that
ninety percent of the growth in height-depth of each ice mountain would be
underwater as the base of the ice mountain sank under the increase in ice mass
above it. Unlike our vanishing sea ice, these ice mountains would not disappear
in the warmer months as they would have become too thick. Furthermore, with
additional pumping they would tend to grow larger each autumn and winter.
Multiplied, they could thus be used to keep our polar regions safely frozen in
regions where we decided it were best, leaving other parts ice-free in summer.
This would have several beneficial effects. First, it would retard global warming.
Second, it would help to keep the jet stream, the polar vortex and the ocean
conveyor system stable, thereby improving global weather. Third, it would
prevent the extinction of many species, including polar bears and several species
of cetaceans and seals, including harp seals, because their sea-ice habitat would
no longer be lost. And finally, it would help to prevent the outgassing of methane
and carbon dioxide from polar regions and tundra, thereby limiting some
catastrophic positive feedbacks of global warming. The ice mountains and
plateaus created by the system would not be as liable to melting under black
carbon emissions as are existing ice-fields because any deposited black carbon
would soon become buried in new, surface ice.
What this surface-freezing ice does, is to create a thermal bridge between the
ocean water under the ice and the upper atmosphere. The heat liberated by the
freezing ice on the surface convects with rising air columns into the upper
atmosphere and then radiates, with little interference by atmospheric
greenhouse gases, directly into space via long wave radiation. In Bonnelle’s
phrase, a thermal shortcut is formed between the seawater under the otherwise
insulating ice and the atmosphere. The process is akin to the action of a heat
pipe, where differential heating and cooling is applied between two zones, either
actively by pumping, as in this case, or passively as in the millions of heat pipes,
or thermosiphons, that de Richter notes are used to keep the permafrost frozen
under some pipelines, roads, railways and other infrastructure.
Each growing ice mountain would act as a heat island, where the heat generated
by the freezing water would flow up the gently sloping conical ice mountain to
produce a tubular updraft of relatively warm air from its pinnacle that might be
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lofted as high as the tropopause, even when strong winds were present. From
high in the troposphere there would be little insulating greenhouse gas or cloud
above the plume to prevent its contained heat from radiating into space, thereby
efficiently cooling the world. The heat would tend not to be radiated back to the
surface because of the clouds and greenhouse gases below.
Existing technology can be adapted to make and operate such a ‘glaciating’
system. Wind turbines mounted on tethered buoys could be made to power with
renewable energy the seawater pumps, the water stream distributers, the deicing equipment, communications and other power requirements. In warmer
seasons, the turbine power could be diverted to bringing nutrients to the
productive surface waters to aid in the proliferation of polar biomass and to
increase the albedo of polar regions by the reflectivity of phytoplankton-rich
waters near the surface.
Wind turbines come in many capabilities, sizes and heights. The largest current
ones deliver 8MW of power and have blades that, at their lowest sweep, are still
45m off the ground. It is surmised that only relatively modest capacity wind
turbines of approximately 1MW power output will be required for our purposes,
provided that their initial supporting column can be extended to perhaps 160m
above the ~30m diameter buoy. Alternatively, the column could be designed to
be extendable by the insertion of additional segments or by telescoping. In either
case, for extra column strength cable guys could secure the upper part of the
turbine support column to projections from the outer rim of the reinforced
concrete buoy, in a way similar to some radio masts. With a supporting column
this tall, and with each turbine blade being perhaps 50m long, allowing clearance
this leaves approximately 100m of column that can be allowed to become iceencased before extension is required.
For reasons of economy, perhaps only two standard sizes of pumping facility
might be considered, the larger and much rarer version being designed to permit
accommodation. Consider building an ice mountain over the nine colder months
of the year. Now, a 1MW wind turbine is capable of producing enough power for
a 60% efficient pump to pump seawater some ten metres above sea level at the
rate of six cubic metres per second. In these months this would generate an ice
mountain of volume 1.38 km3, less any subsequent warm season loss. Call it 1.2
km3 per year. Such a rate would enable the ice mountain to ground itself safely in
water that was less than approximately 50m deep before the encasing sea ice
melted, thereby threatening the mooring system. Subsequent years of ice
accumulation would tend to secure the ice mountain even more firmly. However,
as the ice mountain grew above the size it would reach in the first year, its
volumetric growth rate would decline in stages because the seawater would
soon need to be lifted higher than ten metres.
The superstructure of each installation is to be supported on a hollow, reinforced
concrete buoy, shaped something like a lifebuoy or toroid. This toroid will encase
the top of a downward and stabilizing extension to the turbine’s supporting
column. Projecting wings at the base of this extension help stabilize the buoy
before it is thoroughly encased in thick ice. The entire installation is designed to
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be readily transportable by tugboat and the buoy is designed to resist being
crushed by sea ice. Each buoy might be constructed economically on a
submersible mold floating in a deep dock. This mold is shaped like the lower half
of a toroid, but with an even diameter inner neck to accommodate and secure the
lower and upper support columns. Above the mold is suspended an inflated,
spiral-wound, polymeric, toroidal-shaped bladder that is held in place by straps
and wires attached to a surrounding toroidal mesh of steel reinforcing bars. The
bladder acts as an integrated mold and is not removed. Its outer layer may be
textured on the outside to increase concrete adhesion. The skeleton of the
lifebuoy is then lowered onto a bed of liquid concrete in the one third mold and
vibrated to remove air pockets. In a process called shotcreting, concrete is then
sprayed onto the pressurized bladder and the reinforcing bars until the buoy
shape and the desired wall thicknesses in each part are complete. The in-situ
bladder helps prevent subsequent water intrusion at depth. When the concrete
of the buoy is cured, the semi-submersible mold is detached from it. A stabilizing
weight with locking wings are attached at the end of the supporting column and
then lowered through the toroid’s hole. The top of the mainly-submerged column
is then attached to the now-floating buoy. The above-water turbine support
column, nacelle, turbine system and gearing, turbine blades, pipes and pumping
system are then progressively attached using a single, possibly travelling, crane
mounted on the dock wall. Such a dock or harbourside facility may house many
such molds, so that mass production, or even fully automated, techniques can be
used.
A flexible inlet pipe for seawater, possibly made from corrugated or otherwise
strengthened PET polymer, would extend above and below this weight. It might
be designed for its lower end to lie on, but just above, the ocean floor in order to
capture the most nutrient-rich water whilst excluding abrasive and clogging
material. This pipe would line the inside of the submerged support column. The
pipe could be released and replaced from above, should subsequent marine
encrustation become too great. Backup piping might also be run periodically
from a higher hatch in the support column and running along the then top
surface of the ice mountain to the sea, should the currently operating pipe lose
its unrestricted access to seawater or become too clogged with marine
encrustation. Backup pipes would soon become encased in insulating and
strengthening ice. They might even be given external protrusions to anchor their
thin walls deeply into the ice. Thus, it probably would not matter if the pumped
water were warm enough to melt some of the surrounding ice. The pump could
be designed to float on the water inside the support column, having pipe
extensions both up and down. This would allow easy access for maintenance and
replacement. Replacing clogged inlet pipes might be done by attaching the pump
to one of the succession of pipes laid out each summer on the then ice-surface
and leading from the water, through a matching hatchway into the support
column. Clogged upper pipework would also occasionally require replacement.
Upward pipe extensions would be made whenever telescoping or section
extension was performed. Telescoping might safely and economically be put into
effect by internal jacking. Four pre-laid drag-embedded anchors laid at right
angles would initially anchor each buoy.
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Any such anchoring system could only be expected to restrain a buoy that was
not encased in free-floating ice. This is so because once even a modest ice hill had
formed, the tension placed on the anchoring system due to wind, wave and
current would tend to break it loose, unless the ice structure itself were already
grounded or otherwise attached. An ungrounded ice mountain not encased in
sea ice, and that was itself not attached to the land or immovable ice, would tend
undesirably to move until beached.
To prevent evolving ice mountains from becoming moving navigational hazards,
the buoyed facilities should perhaps be initially moored in shallow enough water
that just one cold season of nine months would allow enough ice to be
accumulated so that the growing ice mountain became grounded or else that it
became frozen onto some immovable structure. Should the ice mountain be
allowed to melt, the facility might become free floating again, even though
possibly still moored by its anchors.
After being towed into place and anchored, operators would wait for a sheet of
sea ice to form around the buoy. When this was thick enough, a remotelydirected nozzle would send a thick stream of pumped seawater radially out
along the ice surface. This stream would be so variably directed as to form an
increasingly high, but low-angled cone of frozen seawater around the reinforced
supporting column of the wind turbine. As this cone grew, its base and its
encased buoy and wind turbine support would slowly submerge as its mass
increased, keeping only around ten percent of the forming ice mountain and the
turbine blades above water.
It is hoped that the angle of slope on the surface of the cone might be kept to as
low as perhaps three degrees. Were the column supporting the turbine and
blades to be extendable upwards, there is little to prevent the ice mountain’s
mass from being increased almost indefinitely. The main constraint might be the
height above sea level to which the seawater could economically be pumped. If
this height were, say, 100m, then the ice mountain could extend approximately
another 900m below the sea surface and be some kilometres in diameter, the
diameter depending in part upon how far the mass of briny seawater could flow
down the sloping conical ice surface of the ice mountain before it froze. Should
the effective flow distance be 2km, then the roughly cylindrical volume of such
an ice mountain this tall could approximate 11 km3. The creation of such
grounded ice mountains might even be able to prevent the collapse of ice shelves
and glaciers, such as the Thwaites ones in Antarctica, thereby stabilizing the
Western Antarctic ice sheet and preventing sea level rise of ~4 metres. The sea
that is currently undermining the Thwaites ice shelf is only ~600m deep.
As the seawater flowed down the sloping ice mountain, freezing as it went, the
remaining flow would tend to become both colder and more briney the further it
went. This is so because water freezing tends to exclude salts. Thus, the now
concentrated brine solution might well flow off the ice mountain surface back
into the ocean. This effect should add strength to the otherwise declining
thermohaline current (THC) by its increment to the downwelling of cold, briney
and hence dense seawater, caused by the sea-ice formation, that renders
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Western Europe unusually warm for its latitude.
Of course, in summertime the outer edges of the ice mountain could be expected
to melt and break off under the influence of storms and warmth. These edges
would be reformed and extended the following winter. Even after its first winter,
the annually maintained and increased ice mountain would not substantially
melt, except when the sea or Arctic climate became much warmer.
The shape of the ice mountain would tend to be that of two cones, one inverted,
with their bases fused together. This is so because the perimeter of both would
grow as new ice froze on the uninsulated surface of the upper cone. The lower,
inverted cone might be the one to experience the most melting because of its
intimate contact with relatively warm and probably moving ocean water. Any
melting of the lower cone would tend to melt the ice surrounding the concrete
buoy and the support column just above it. When this sank enough to meet the
ocean floor, the weight of the ice mountain would tend to crush the sub-surface
stabilizing column, the hollow concrete buoy itself, and the lower part of the
turbine support column. Fortunately by then, these would no longer be required.
The mass of each ice mountain would be composed, at least initially, of wellnutriated, but somewhat briny sea water from the depths. As this mass partly
melted (probably mainly from below) in warm times or waters, it would
generate considerable Arctic biomass, far more than did the original, nutrientdepleted pack ice and snow. Furthermore in warm times, pumping energy might
instead be used to bring deep, nutriated water to the sea surface for fine
dissemination and uptake of its nutrients by phytoplankton, thereby increasing
Arctic biomass.
Arctic conditions are particularly harsh, but are not that different from those
experienced by existing North Sea wind turbines in winter. However, unmanned
ice-mountain wind-turbine installations in the Arctic are individually probably
less mission-critical than are those in the North Sea and they do not have the
complication of power line maintenance to the shore. Hence, the maintenance
and repair of those turbines used to generate ice mountains, albedo, and biomass
can probably be left to the summertime. However, given the corrosiveness of
brine, together with the effects of extreme cold, marine organisms and ice,
pumping elements in contact with the brine may need to be made of highly
resistant materials, such as titanium, ceramics, polymers and/or carbon fibre.
Some few of the installations might be designed to include accommodation. If so,
the inside of the supporting column could include spiral stairs surrounding a lift.
Shelter, workshop and storage space might be provided by means of inflating a
flexible, toroidal-shaped dome over a ring-shaped platform encasing the
supporting column of the wind turbine. Later on, a solid dome of ice might be
formed over this inflated dome by spraying seawater over it. Such an installation
could become like Norway’s Svalbard facility for seed preservation or Sweden’s
IceHotel. The space inside the dome would then be accessed via short corridors
leading to doors in the column. Successively higher, linked habitats could be
constructed as the ice mountain grew upwards from its top surface. When the
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planned full height was reached, a final habitat level might be constructed with
direct access to the nearly-flat surface of the ice cone and windows to the
outside. This topmost habitat could easily be over 30m in diameter just by using
inflated and triple-insulated roofing material. Linked and similar radiating
domes might be used for diverse purposes. Utility services for them would also
be provided via the support column. Spare power from the wind turbines might
even permit hydroponic horticulture and waste recycling to occur there. Each
completed ice mountain would be able to include long landing strips in different
directions. Power storage systems would ensure that air-conditioning,
communications and other vital services did not fail when the winds did.
One ice mountain facility on either side of the mouth of a north-flowing Arctic
river, or a string of such structures across the wider estuaries of such rivers,
might well be able to freeze together in order to hold back some or all of the
issuing riverine water. Once the dam had formed and the river flowed (even
under some of its own ice), the water could back up and rise in level sufficiently
for a portion of its water to cascade over the dam (now weir) onto the stillfrozen sea ice floe beyond. As fresh water freezes at a higher temperature than
does briny seawater, this would tend to increase the area of thickened ice many
times over. Furthermore, the surface of the area-increased fresh water behind
the weir might also tend to freeze. This would have the effect of encasing the
newly-submerged, low-lying land in a coat of ice, thereby increasing its albedo
and tending to lock in most of the otherwise outgassing methane and CO2
beneath it. Thus, both shallow ocean, littoral, and nearby tundra could be frozen
over by continued such applications. The area frozen over by such river mouth,
inter-island (particularly Canadian) or shallow ocean installations might come to
cover thousands or even millions of square kilometres.
The placement of such installations would not necessarily be restricted to the
extensive shallow waters bordering the Arctic Sea. Provided that a new
installation had its forming ice mountain frozen solid onto that of an existing one
or land, thereby mooring it before the warmer season began, there seems to be
no reason why arrays of such installations might not extend progressively
further offshore. They might even be linked by a series of long cables frozen into
the ice with anchor points in order to minimize the calving off of icebergs. Thus,
there seems to be no physical reason why these man-made ice sheets and
mountains might not cover much of the Arctic Ocean, leaving only selected wide
passages and open areas clear for wildlife, shipping and other activities. The total
area north of the Arctic Circle that appears to be suitable for such ‘glaciation’ is in
excess of 4M km2. Antarctica, Greenland, Russia, Norway, Chile and Alaska and
some other polar and sub-polar regions also have some suitable sites for ice
mountain construction.
Tall ice mountains might also be created in river valleys, thereby providing
cheap dams in Arctic and sub-Arctic regions from which hydroelectricity might
be generated. However, unless the ice dams were thick and frozen onto the
permafrost, they might not be as stable as traditional dams. Hence, care would
need to be taken regarding the safety of inhabited areas, infrastructure and
wildlife in the lower levels downstream.
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Preliminary tests on the viability of the ice mountain concept may be performed
at low cost. Once sea ice has formed sufficiently thick to support it, a protective
capsule and platform mounted on a triangular assembly of three tall buoys,
sitting on the ice, might house a diesel-powered pump designed to pump
seawater from below the ice through a slowly-rotating nozzle covering a wide
circle onto the ice. Sensors would monitor and relay the build-up of ice into an
ice hill, together with its undersea and ice floe effects. When downward ice
growth or ice hill subsidence threatened to close off the original inlet because of
contact with the seabed an insulated new pipe might need to be laid onto the
young ice hill’s surface leading to the sea. This new pipe would soon become
encased in insulating ice when above sea level. Given the specific design of the
pilot pumping facility, the experiment ought to be able to determine the angle of
inclination of the resulting ice hill, its changing volume, its evolving undersea
profile, the energy required to produce the hill, where improvements might be
made to the design, and some of the problems to be encountered by future windturbine powered designs, designed to generate ice mountains.
Southern Ocean Experiment
Details for this have been documented in other papers by the author, as have
simplified ways by which the parameters can be established and models run to
establish the various effects. Results from the Caribbean experiments will inform
Southern Ocean trial planning.
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