Mongolian city to be cooled by giant ice cube

MNN reports Ulan Bator is considering an unconventional approach to cooling in summer - Mongolian city to be cooled by giant ice cube.

In one of the grandest geoengineering projects in the world to date, the Mongolian capital city Ulan Bator is preparing to keep cool this summer by freezing and storing a gigantic block of ice, reports the Guardian.

The ambitious project, which is being spearheaded by Mongolian engineering firm ECOS & EMI, will use the giant ice cube to reduce energy demand from air conditioners during the hot summer months, as well as to reinforce irrigation supplies. Citizens of Ulan Bator will also be able to tap the ice for their drinking water.

The plan is a practical one for Ulan Bator because of the citys unusually bipolar climate, which can be unbearably hot and dry during a few summer months but bitterly cold throughout the winter. In fact, Ulan Bator is the coldest national capital in the world. Ice can therefore be farmed during colder months and made to last through the summer.

In order to generate the giant ice cube, engineers have looked to nature for inspiration. The idea will be to artificially create "naleds"-- sheet-like slabs of layered ice, common in subarctic climates, that form from successive flows of freezing, pressurized ground water. Naled ice is far thicker than regular ice formation on lakes, since new layers continue to form so long as there is enough water pressure to penetrate the surface. In fact, naleds can be so thick that they have been used as drilling platforms, and even to build river crossings for tanks.

Officials will manipulate the naled-forming process by drilling bore holes in the ice that forms on the nearby Tuul river. As the water discharges across the surface of the ice, it will freeze in successive layers-- much like stacking ice rinks on top of ice rinks.

Although it may sound like an extreme solution to global warming, Mongolian authorities think that the technology could soon be utilized to combat rising temperatures in cities around the world. Giant ice cubes could even be used to create cool microclimates or ice-themed amusement parks that help sweaty citizens beat the heat in the summer.

{ Read More }

Global warming melts edge of Greenland ice sheet

The SMH has a look at monitoring of the melting of Greenlands glaciers - Global warming melts edge of Greenland icesheet.

The last edge of the Greenland ice sheet that had resisted global warming has now become unstable, adding billions of tonnes of meltwater to rising seas, scientists say. In a study published in the journal Nature Climate Change, they say a surge in temperature from 2003 has eased the brakes on a long "river" of ice that flows to the coast in northeastern Greenland.

Known as an ice stream, the "river" takes ice from a vast basin and slowly shifts it to the sea - in the same way the Amazon River drains water.

In the past, the flow from this ice stream was constrained by massive buildups of ice debris choking its mouth. But a three-year spell of exceptionally high temperatures removed this blockage - and like a cork removed from a bottle helped accelerate the flow, the study said.

{ Read More }

Total Arctic sea ice at record low in 2010 study

Scientific American has a post on the decline of arctic sea ice - Total Arctic sea ice at record low in 2010: study.

The minimum summertime volume of Arctic sea ice fell to a record low last year, researchers said in a study to be published shortly, suggesting that thinning of the ice had outweighed a recovery in area The study estimated that last year broke the previous, 2007 record for the minimum volume of ice, which is calculated from a combination of sea ice area and thickness.

The research adds to a picture of rapid climate change at the top of the world that could see the Arctic Ocean ice-free within decades, spurring new oil exploration opportunities but possibly also disrupted weather patterns far afield and a faster rise in sea levels.

The authors developed a model predicting thickness across the Arctic Ocean based on actual observations of winds, air and ocean temperatures. "The real worrisome fact is downward trend over the last 32 years," said Axel Schweiger, lead author of the paper, referring to a satellite record of changes in the Arctic.

He was emailing Reuters at the Greenpeace icebreaker Arctic Sunrise, in the Arctic Ocean between the Norwegian island of Svalbard and the North Pole. "(It fell) by a large enough margin to establish a statistically significant new record," said the authors in their paper titled "Uncertainty in modeled Arctic sea ice volume."

The researchers at the University of Washington in Seattle checked the model results against real readings of ice thickness using limited submarine and satellite data.

The Arctic Sea Ice Blog is a good place to keep up with what is happening in this field.

{ Read More }