Arctic Whitening Might Help Ice But Not Climate

 

It has been proposed that disastrous climate effects could be offset by technological approaches, broadly called geoengineering. One geoengineering proposal is to artificially whiten the surface of the Arctic Ocean in order to increase the reflection of the Sun's energy into space and restore sea ice in the area. 

 

Ocean whitening involves floating white grains or producing micro bubbles on the surface of the sea to reflect some of the sun's heat back into space. 

 

New research from Carnegie's Ivana Cvijanovic (now at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory) and Ken Caldeira, as well as Douglas MacMartin of Caltech, shows that while an incredibly large effort could, in principle, restore vast amounts of sea ice by this method, it would not result in substantial cooling. As a result, it would not be effective in keeping the ground frozen in the Arctic. Their findings are published by Environmental Research Letters.

 

"By the middle of the century, the Arctic Ocean is predicted to be ice-free during part of the year," lead author Cvijanovic explained. "This could create substantial ecological problems in the Arctic, including habitat range changes and loss of biodiversity."

 

“Simply put, our results indicate that whitening of the surface of the Arctic Ocean would not be an effective tool for offsetting the effects of climate change cause by atmospheric greenhouse gas,” said Kenneth Caldeira, a climate researcher at the Carnegie Institution in Washington DC.