AAAS: "To avoid sea level rise, some researchers want to build barriers around the world's most vulnerable glaciers." Dangerous momentum is being built up around geoengineering schemes for the atmosphere + now for protection of polar glaciers/ice sheets. "A white paper, released this month by glaciologists who conducted a series of workshops + town halls over course of 10 months, calls for boosting research into daring plans that would protect vulnerable ice sheets by building flexible barriers around them or drilling deep into them to slow their slippage into the sea." Many glaciologists are responding negatively, viewing these not only as outlandishly expensive + logistically flawed but also a distraction from problem of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.' With current temperature rise coastal areas may have to contend with a meter of sea level rise by the end of the century, according to a 2021 report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. "But some researchers predict worse, warning that the ice sheets on top of Greenland and Antarctica, which collectively store enough water to cause many more meters of global sea level rise, are already past tipping points." Creation of these mammoth ice sheets required millions of years of falling snow. Nothing humanity can do would replace them. 'One idea researched by Moore and covered in the report is to build buoyant “curtains,” moored to the sea floor beyond the edge of ice shelves and glaciers, to block natural currents of warm water that erode ice sheets from below...Twila Moon, a glaciologist at the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center, says such projects would require fleets of icebreakers, extensive shipping and supply chain needs, and significant personnel to construct, maintain, and guard the final structures—in ocean conditions she calls “eye-poppingly difficult.” The projects could also incur unintended consequences, potentially disrupting ocean circulation patterns or endangering wildlife. Furthermore, would take decades to see if whether interventions were working.'
