From Physorg.com
The Swiss alpine region of Valais is pictured in February 2008. German researchers trying to slow melting glaciers have set up a large screen in the Swiss Alps that they hope will trap cold air over the icy mass, Johannes Gutenberg University said Thursday.
German researchers trying to slow melting glaciers have set up a large screen in the Swiss Alps that they hope will trap cold air over the icy mass, Johannes Gutenberg University said Thursday.
“We hope our installations will bring about a net cooling of the area. And if the melt is not stopped, that it is at least slowed,” the project’s leader, geography professor Hans-Joachim Fuchs, said in a statement.
The structure, 15 metres long and three metres high (49 feet by 10 feet), was raised in the middle of the Rhone glacier in Switzerland’s southwestern Valais region by 27 students from the German university.
The purpose of the screen — which sits at an altitude of 2,300 metres — is to keep cold winds over the glacier.
Already successfully tested in a laboratory, the experiment will be studied on site until August 21, according to the university, located in the German city of Mainz.
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Wouldn’t it be better, if one were really trying to prevent glacier reduction, to provide shade for the glacier?
Therefore a high fence along the Southern ridges of the glacial valley?.
Why am I not surprised by this, especially since Germany has such nice things as the “Ant Police.” I kid you not! As I understand it, if you get caught disturbing those precious little ants, you get a free ticket to jail.
Actually, this professor has a good thing going for him: if a nature produced cold wave kicks in, he can say he can still claim a measure of success by downplaying nature. If it doesn’t and it actually works, he can say he’s successful. If the dumb idea doesn’t work, he can say AGW is too far advance to do anything. It’s a “win-win” for him!
Jack Koenig, Editor
The Mysterious Climate Project
http://www.climateclinic.com
Ilustrative of the nuttiness that AGW has caused. How many times have we been reminded recently – by Hurricane Andrew, Hurricane Katrina, the 2008 Mid-West flooding, the huge amounts of snow and ice received by states north of Mason Dixon (sorry, I am in NC), deserts in Iran seeing their first snows in 50 years, China’s huge economic crises caused by heavier than normal snows – how often must we be reminded that we do not and cannot control the large-scale climate systems that roam our planet. We never have and we never will.
This latest effort is like a bunch of ants using a long piece of string to try to trip up a elephant. It’s absurd from the word go. It not only illustrates that man does not understand the complex functions and overall power of nature, it also illustrates that man by and large does not understand his role and place within that natural world. We can debate all long exactly what that is, but I believe many readers of this blog will say that THIS is most definitely NOT it.
It might work and the screen is very small for the effect it might produce. But they might want to work on how to melt glaciers in a hurry if things get colder,
Speaking of glaciers and snow, a bit off topic if you don’t mind, but anyone noticing all the snow in Colorado this evening? All the pass sites are reporting 1/4 or 1/2 mi visibility, I’m assuming there is quite a bit of snow in the highest of elevations from that cold-core system dropping down from Canada. I’m glad I’m not vacationing in Colorado this year as I often do in August. BRRR.
A feel good story for the AGW crowd.
Mankind saves the planet!
Mankind saves Mother Nature!
Mother Nature pays back such kindness with blizzards of the centuries. {Gotta give them flea specks some proper perspective.}
While I am writing this (at 5 am) from Geneva, the outside temperature is 11°C. Some 100 km N-E from here the temperature is 5.4°C. The previous night, snowfall was recorded down to an altitude of 2000m.
Yeah… that’s kind of ridiculous.
Perhaps when this attempt fails, more of my fellow proponents will be persuaded that there is no “quick fix” to the climate change problem. We have to be pro-active and work diligently if we want to mitigate climate change; there are no easy fixes, just hard work. In my opinion, though, the benefits of that work will permeate many aspects of the economy and society for the better, make them very worthwhile.
Does anyone have the thermodynamics of this enterprise?
At the height of the glaciers the outside temperature is below freezing anyway. Or is this glacier below 1,5 km? I had the impression that one of the strong arguments against global warming is that glaciers can melt only by an increase of the absorption of direct radiation: sun or soot. Conduction cannot melt them.
If they would recover a piece of wood exposed by those receding glaciers, I believe they would find that it carbon dates to about 5000 years ago. There have been several studies in the Alps doing just that. Apparently, the valleys where those glaciers are were forested at one point since the last ice age ended. It seems to me that the environment is simply “recovering” to what it was some 50 centuries ago.
Actually, this isn’t about “the environment” at all. It is about money. That summer snow brings in a lot of cash. They can try to overpower Mother Nature, but she always bats last.
They sould have saved their money and gotten Cristo to wrap the glacier.
Counters
Please demonstrate what the climate change “problems” are that you refer to so blithely. Do you sincerely believe man can “mitigate” the climate?
480 sqft, about 1/5 the footprint of my modest house. Well, that’s going to make a difference.
“The year was 1645, and the glaciers in the Alps were on the move. In Chamonix at the foot of Mont Blanc, people watched in fear as the Mer de Glace (Sea of Ice) glacier advanced. In earlier years, they had seen the slowly flowing ice engulf farms and crush entire villages.
They turned to the Bishop of Geneva for help, and he made the journey to Chamonix. At the ice front he performed a rite of exorcism.
Little by little, the glacier receded….”
http://www.geology.um.maine.edu/ges121/lectures/11-little-ice-age/little-ice-age.html
Theme and variation!
45 square metres? Won’t trap much air. Assuming this is shade, then it might stop about 4.5Kw/h if and when the sun shines. Over 21 days? Be interesting to know if it has any effect at all.
I remember we were chatting at The Reference Frame (Motl’s blog) about the albedo a couple of years ago. As a joke I did propose, in order to reduce the average temp. of the Earth, to cover the whole Sahara with aluminium foil increasing thus the albedo from 0.4 (sand) to almost 1 (aluminium foil). Since Sahara is about 6% of the total land surface then increasing 100% the reflectivity of that surface should yield a net reduction of 1 or 2 °C for the whole earth. Of course we would need the whole worldwide production of aluminium foil during two or three years. This reminds me not to make jokes just in case someone takes them seriously 🙂
best
We will waite the results until 21 August .
For you. Thiz debate iz über…
counters (21:11:50) wrote: “Perhaps when this attempt fails, more of my fellow proponents will be persuaded that there is no “quick fix” to the climate change problem. We have to be pro-active and work diligently if we want to mitigate climate change; there are no easy fixes, just hard work. In my opinion, though, the benefits of that work will permeate many aspects of the economy and society for the better, make them very worthwhile.”
Another ‘off-the-wall” comment by counters. Since when do we have to mitigate nature? Understanding nature and making accommodations for its relentless moves is something mankind has always attempted. But mitigating?
Come on counters, although we’ve heard worse from you, this is still ridiculous!
Jack Koenig, Editor
The Mysterious Climate Project
http://www.climateclinic.com
This is not the first such attempt to save the Alpine ski industry
Revolutionary methods to preserve snow, the ‘Austrian gold’
A news report from 2005 reports “Workers cover the ski slopes on the Pitztal Glacier in Austria with an innovative white fleece in an effort to protect the mountain from glacier melting”
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8432120/
Okay, silly question:
Why are we attempting to save glaciers? I’m not really sure what benefits are imparted by a huge, moving sheet of ice grinding its way through anything in its path.
Melting glaciers are frequently touted as signs of GW, but come on, wouldn’t this be like trying to cure cancer by taking Tylenol?
I wonder if at the end of the last Ice Age, as the glaciers were retreating all over the world, if some primitive version of a MoonBat tried to stop the melting. I suppose it would have gone a little something like this:
“Ugh, Grog, quick get Mammoth skin. Glacier melts. Must be Ogg’s fault. He burning wood again.”
Why is it necessary to “mitigate” climate change? Hasn’t the history of this planet been rife with a great deal of drastic climate change? I have difficulty believing that the earth merely popped into existence at given temperature, and has only now begun to experience climate change. Unless the AGW’s are pushing a religious point of view… That would explain the stable climate thingy.
“Climate change: The next ten years” is the title of an artice in the New Scientist. At present only available to those who subscibe (I don’t)
http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/mg19926691.500-climate-change-the-next-ten-years.html
You watch, the next thing we hear about this will be of the massive fish die off due to “mitigating climate change”, and halting the normal melting of glaciers! Ironically, it will be hailed as another example of how unnatural (and just plain awful) mankind is! (After all, we merely popped into existence as well)
Neil, I’ll refer you to the IPCC AR4; the case and conclusion is laid out plainly there. Yes, we can mitigate climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions.