Climate Geoengineering Prizewinner: Refreeze the Arctic with a Big Mobile Submarine

Arctic Ice Maker Submarine
Arctic Ice Maker Submarine, concept video screenshot.

Guest essay by Eric Worrall

Seems obvious right? The ice is melting, so build a series of big mobile freezer boats to produce new blocks of ice.

Iceberg-making submarine aims to tackle global warming by re-freezing the Arctic

Alyn Griffiths

A team of designers led by Faris Rajak Kotahatuhaha proposes re-freezing sea water in the Arctic to create miniature modular icebergs using a submarine-like vessel, in a bid to combat climate change.
The Indonesian designer worked on the prototype with collaborators Denny Lesmana Budi and Fiera Alifa for an international competition organised by the Association of Siamese Architects.

“The main goal of this idea is to restore the polar ecosystem, which has a direct effect on the balance of the global climate,” said the designer, adding that in this scenario “it is better to prevent than cure“.

The submarine-like vessel would submerge to collect sea water in a central hexagonal tank. Turbines would then be used to blast the tank with cold air and accelerate the freezing process.

During this process, the vessel would return to the surface of the sea and the tank would be covered to protect it from sunlight. A system of reverse osmosis would be used to filter some of the salt from the water in order to speed up the process.

Once the water is frozen, the vessel would submerge again, leaving behind an “ice baby” with a volume of 2,027 cubic-metres. These miniature icebergs would then cluster together in a honeycomb pattern to form a larger ice floe.

Read more: https://www.dezeen.com/2019/07/27/refreezing-the-arctic-geoengineering-design-climate-change/

The concept video;

There is a slight flaw with this idea.

Refrigeration, reverse osmosis, pumping heat, all takes a lot of work. Both the latent heat of fusion extracted from the water to turn it into ice and the waste heat from the freezing process will have to be dumped somewhere.

If they dump the waste heat into the Arctic ocean, or the air, it will probably melt the ice their submarine just finished freezing.

Update (EW): tweaked the wording of the last few paragraphs.

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July 27, 2019 7:44 pm

“If they dump the waste heat into the Arctic ocean, or the air, it will probably melt the ice their submarine just finished freezing.”

The Arctic atmosphere temperature is barely high enough to melt ice.
It has been long known that the seawater does the melting and that storms and winds are the most destructive to Arctic ice.

I am reminded of the phrases “shoveling sand against the tide” and “What fools these mortals be”.

David Chappell
July 27, 2019 7:45 pm

Indonesians working on a project for the Association of Siamese (Thai) Architects. Lots of polar experience there.

July 27, 2019 7:46 pm

Someone was absent when thermodynamics was covered.

icisil
July 27, 2019 7:53 pm

It’s like they’re living in a video game.

Gerald Machnee
July 27, 2019 8:20 pm

Why don’t they start this week in Europe and change the heat into ice there.

Hugs
Reply to  Gerald Machnee
July 27, 2019 10:56 pm

No!

It will be the first and only 90 degree day today! I’ve got enough of -2 to +5°C weather here.

Andre Den Tandt
July 27, 2019 8:39 pm

This idea sure would have legs: put some dies in the top layer of ice, vary the shape off the ice-blocks and you could get a floating puzzle with a mega-picture of heroic ACC fighters like Al Gore or Michael Mann.

John Hultquist
July 27, 2019 8:47 pm

California billionaire Tom Steyer will write a big check to this crew, and then
all you deniers will be crying in warm beer.

Sean
July 27, 2019 8:57 pm

I think the idea here is not that they’re making the world cooler with a refrigeration process, but that by increasing the amount of ice in the Arctic they’re reflecting more sunlight / heat into space.

Steve Reddish
Reply to  Sean
July 27, 2019 10:57 pm

Sean, two problems with your suggestion:
1) Insolation has very little heating affect on arctic waters due to the very low angle of incidence. During the summer more heat would be input into Arctic waters by these submarines than would be reflected away by the ice created.
2) Water exposed to the atmosphere is cooled by evaporation. The ice cubes would also radiate less heat than the water covered by that ice would.

Result: water underneath the created ice would end the summer warmer than under nearby ice-free areas.

Kurt in Switzerland
Reply to  Sean
July 27, 2019 11:06 pm

I think the idea is to scrape the bottom of the barrel for the most gullible left. Perhaps they’ll strike it rich if they persevere.

observa
July 27, 2019 9:01 pm

Whatever happened to turning the dial on the globe’s thermostat with these climate changers? They’re a fickle flighty bunch with no stamina it seems. Focus chaps focus!

LOL@Klimate Katastrophe Kooks
July 27, 2019 11:42 pm

Did everyone else miss the fact that the video purports to stop sea level rise by adding ice to water?

Ice cubes in a glass, glass filled to the brim with water… when the ice melts, the water level won’t change.

There’s a reason ice floats, after all.

These modern idiots and their useless college degrees are dumber than 4th graders of the past. The difference is, 4th graders don’t get research grants worth millions of dollars to build their unicorn-farting-pixie-dust ideas.

Bryan A
Reply to  LOL@Klimate Katastrophe Kooks
July 28, 2019 12:47 am

You could do it that way but it would need to involve lifting the newly formed ice blocks onto land. Perhaps air lifting them to inland reservoirs and parched areas like the Sahara and Gobi

LOL@Klimate Katastrophe Kooks
Reply to  Bryan A
July 28, 2019 1:57 pm

I believe you’ve missed the point, Bryan A. Ice melting while it is in water will not raise the water level. So the video purporting to stop sea level rise by creating sea-ice simply won’t work.

On top of that, the work required to desalinate the water and remove latent heat would dump even more heat into the environment, causing any existing ice to melt even faster. They’d literally be heating the Arctic, while claiming that they’re cooling it… but this wouldn’t be the first time science-denying climate alarmists came up with a solution which did the exact opposite of what they wanted it to do.

In fact, even the underlying premise of CAGW is a result of an inversion of reality based upon a flawed understanding of physics. Particle physics shows that CO2, above ~288 K, is a net atmospheric coolant.
———-
All radiative emission to space is, by definition, a cooling process. The only way our planet can shed energy is via radiative emission to space.

N2 and O2, comprising ~99% of the atmosphere, are homonuclear diatomics and therefore have no net magnetic dipole, rendering them unable to effectively emit (or absorb) IR. Thus the only way they can cool is via conduction by contact with a cooler surface, or via transfer of their translational mode energy to the vibrational mode quantum state energy of radiative molecules.
———-
The radiative cooling of air via solely translational mode energy converting to radiation
CO2{v20(0)} (at 288K+) + CO2{v20(0)} (at 288K+) -> CO2{v20(0)} + C02{v21(1)} -> CO2{v20(0)} + CO2{v20(0)} + 667.4 cm-1

You’ll note the above interaction is a direct conversion of translational mode energy (which we perceive as temperature) to 14.98352 µm radiation. This directly cools the air, and the effect is significant, since nearly all the translational mode energy is converted to radiation, leaving the CO2 molecules at a very low temperature, whereupon they absorb energy by colliding with other atmospheric constituents. The effect begins taking place significantly at ~288 K, the temperature at which the majority of the molecules will have sufficient translational mode energy to convert to vibrational mode energy.

288 K also happens to be the stated average global temperature… that is not a coincidence, it is a mechanism long known, partly a result of CO2 radiative emission ramping up at ~288 K. As CO2 concentration increases, this effect will become more pronounced, increasingly damping any temperature excursions above ~288 K by increase of radiative emission via this interaction, and below ~288 K by reduction of radiative emission via this interaction.

It is not necessary for CO2{v20(0)} to collide with another CO2 molecule for this interaction to take place, any other molecule will do… the Equipartition Theorem dictates that all atmospheric constituents at the same temperature will have the same translational mode energy. So in reality, the above interaction could be represented thusly:
X (at 288K+) + CO2{v20(0)} (at 288K+) -> X + C02{v21(1)} -> X + CO2{v20(0)} + 667.4 cm-1
where X is any atmospheric molecule.

Further, you’ll note that if a CO2 molecule is already in the CO2{v21(1)} vibrational mode quantum state, a collision at just 0.1 K higher temperature (ie: ~288.1 K) can excite it to the CO2{v22(2)} state, whereupon it can emit a 14.97454 µm photon to de-excite to the CO2{v21(1)} state, and a 14.98352 µm photon to de-excite to the CO2{v20(0)} state.

Even further, you’ll note that if a CO2 molecule is already in the CO2{v22(2)} vibrational mode quantum state, a collision at just 0.1 K higher temperature (ie: ~288.2 K) can excite it to the CO2{v23(3)} state, whereupon it can emit a 14.96782 µm photon to de-excite to the CO2{v22(2)} state, a 14.97454 µm photon to de-excite to the CO2{v21(1)} state, and a 14.98352 µm photon to de-excite to the CO2{v20(0)} state.

This implies that for temperatures above ~288 K, more of the translational energy of atmospheric molecules will flow to CO2 vibrational mode quantum state energy, rather than vibrational mode quantum state energy of CO2 flowing to translational energy of other atmospheric molecules, simply for the fact that at and above that temperature, the combined translational energy of two colliding molecules is sufficient to excite the CO2 vibrational modes. This increases the time duration of CO2 vibrational mode quantum state excitation and therefore the probability that CO2 will radiatively emit, breaking LTE. Therefore the energy flow is to CO2, not from it.

In other words, at and above ~288 K, the combined translational mode energy of two molecules is higher than C02{v21(1)} vibrational mode energy, and therefore energy will flow to CO2 from other atmospheric molecules’ translational mode energy during molecular collision, simply because CO2 can radiatively emit that energy and break LTE, rather than that energy flowing back to other molecules.

You’ll note that’s diametrically opposite to the claimed mechanism by which CO2 purportedly causes global warming. Liberals tend to invert reality, and rely upon the low standard of education to sustain that inversion’s claims.
———-
Satellites see CO2 and (a bit of) water vapor radiating at the temperature of the lower stratosphere (at the ‘characteristic-emission surface’ altitude, or just less than one optical depth from TOA for any given wavelength) all over the planet. This is because ozone (O3, excited by incoming solar radiation) and collisional processes excite nitrogen (N2) to its {v1(1)} (symmetric stretch) vibrational mode, and N2 then transfers energy to the {v3(1)} (asymmetric stretch) mode of CO2 via collision as shown in the image, whereupon the vibrationally excited CO2 partially de-excites by dropping from the {v3(1)} (asymmetric stretch) mode to either the {v1(1)} (symmetric stretch) mode by emitting a 10.4 µm photon, or to the {v20(2)} (bending) mode by emitting a 9.4 µm photon.

This is the same method by which a CO2 laser works… the laser filling gas within the discharge tube consists of around 10–20% carbon dioxide (CO2), around 10–20% nitrogen (N2), and a few percent hydrogen (H2) and/or xenon (Xe), and the remainder helium (He). Electron impact vibrationally excites the N2 to its first vibrational mode quantum state {v1(1)}, the N2 collides with CO2, the CO2 becomes excited in the asymmetric stretch vibrational mode quantum state {v3(1)}, and de-excites to its {v1(1)} or {v20(2)} vibrational modes by emission of 9.4 µm or 10.4 µm radiation (wavelength dependent upon isotopic composition of the CO2 molecules) as described above. The helium is used to fully de-excite the CO2 to the {v20(0)} ground state after it’s radiatively de-excited to maintain population inversion (which is necessary for stimulated emission), but this is unimportant to the process of energy transfer from vibrationally excited N2 to CO2 in the atmosphere. The process by which the N2 becomes vibrationally excited (in the case of a CO2 laser via electron impact; in the atmosphere via translational-to-vibrational collisional processes and via vibrational-to-vibrational collisional processes with solar-excited O3) is similarly unimportant… the concept of energy flowing from N2 to CO2 is the same. Laser wavelength can be tuned by altering the isotopic ratio of the carbon and oxygen atoms comprising the CO2 molecules in the discharge tube, with heavier isotopes resulting in longer wavelength emission.

The Boltzmann Factor shows that ~10.26671% of N2 molecules are in the N2{v1(1)} excited state at 288 K due to collisional (t-v) processes. That’s 195 times more excited N2 molecules than all CO2 molecules (vibrationally excited or not).
———-

July 27, 2019 11:48 pm

The stupid, it freezes!

Coeur de Lion
July 27, 2019 11:52 pm

Rajak Ka Ha ha ha ha ha?

Dennis Gerald Sandberg
Reply to  Coeur de Lion
July 28, 2019 10:29 am

Tax dollars at work? Surely not. Spoof. No one anywhere is THAT stupid.

Paul Kolk
July 28, 2019 12:31 am

Michael Kelly at 8.40 pm
My mental arithmetic gets me to 576 lbs, not over three tons.
Just checking!

Patrick MJD
July 28, 2019 12:35 am

Takes lots of energy to artificially freeze water.

WXcycles
July 28, 2019 12:50 am

The very first time I heard about this concept of geoengineering I was a teen and read some book talking about how the Russians had proposed to spray soot all over the arctic to cause the ice melt. Seemed a little nuts.

I wish they’d make up their mind though.

M__ S__
July 28, 2019 12:53 am

Do any of these clowns know any basic math?

July 28, 2019 1:33 am

“Kotahatuhaha” ha ha ha ha ha.

I really hope it’s a hoax, but I invoke Poe’s law. You simply cannot tell. Real climastrology is knows for emitting such idiocies at a much higher than expected, alarming, accelerating rate.

E J Zuiderwijk
July 28, 2019 1:52 am

Haha. They call the ships ‘Arks’. And the heat generated by the refrigerators is dumped in, eh, the ocean waters.

ozspeaksup
July 28, 2019 2:40 am

the vidclip was prob what got the prize not the feasibility of it.
reminded me of the proposed mars habitat vid clips
all so nice and secondlifey
realitys going to be a whole lot different;-)

ozspeaksup
July 28, 2019 2:41 am

im scared to ask..if that…was the winner
how bad were the rest?
and what dippydog paid him? how much?

MatrixTransform
July 28, 2019 3:02 am

just get parliament to write new laws of thermodynamics.

problem solved

toorightmate
Reply to  MatrixTransform
July 28, 2019 5:44 am

Please don’t give the four Demo Morons any further ideas.

richard
July 28, 2019 3:21 am

Hmm, that won’t stop the wind direction which is the biggest problem.

“We found that these patterns can explain in large part why the ice cover decreased so much more rapidly after 2000. Wind patterns depend on the position of major high-pressure and low-pressure systems. We discovered that months with very little ice cover and high temperatures corresponded with crucial variations in the wind patterns,” explains Mr Sorteberg.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/04/100427111449.htm

john harmsworth
Reply to  richard
July 29, 2019 1:02 pm

How about a dose of reality? Open water allows more disturbance of the surface and more ocean heat escapes to atmosphere. This sustains the open water until the ocean surface cools to a temperature at which the ice begins to grow again in spite of the wind. This is why the open ice persists for years before the situation reverses. The ice free, windy period slowly causes ice drifts and folds which become more resistant to the wind and waves. After many years we will find the surface area that persists through the summer is increasing because it is thicker, older ice. Combined with the now colder water temperature the ice surface area begins to grow year on year once again.

john harmsworth
Reply to  richard
July 29, 2019 1:03 pm

Once again, posts not showing up, Mod.

Bruce Cobb
July 28, 2019 3:48 am

Another stupid-on-steroids brain farty idea which would accomplish nothing except cost boatloads of money. My suspicion with all of these “genius” ideas is that they aren’t actually serious. Because the default “solution” is always there, which is to cut “carbon” emissions. So in a way, the wilder and more expensive the geoengineering idea is, the better. “Don’t like my geoengineering idea? Fine. Then stop using fossil fuels. The choice is yours.”

Sara
July 28, 2019 4:02 am

That old commercial about margarine tasting as good as butter keeps popping up. At the end, it’s thunder, lightning and critters scattering to the four winds.

DON’T MESS WITH MOTHER NATURE!!!!! SHE’S CRANKY!!!

There’s another, and very, very wise old saying: Be careful what you wish for. You might get it.

BC
July 28, 2019 4:30 am

Did they get a government (taxpayer) grant for this work?