Current Affair 1:

News:

A group of scientists has released a white paper on glacial geoengineering to assess possible technological interventions that could help address catastrophic sea-level rise scenarios.

Glacial Geoengineering:

It refers to deliberate, large-scale interventions aimed at slowing or preventing the melting of glaciers and ice sheets.

Major Areas of Research:

The report identifies major areas of research for the future, including determining what natural processes might limit ice sheet deterioration and what human interventions could enhance those processes.

Glacier Geoengineering Intervention Proposed

1. Fibre-based Curtains: These consist of berms or fibre- based “curtains” attached to the seabed around the feet of ice shelves, which reduce the ice shelves’ exposure to warm ocean water circulating under them. Modelling studies suggest that modest curtains could slow sea level rise from the melting of these glaciers by a factor of 10, as they would delay the collapse of Antarctica’s Thwaites and Pine Island glaciers.
2. Drilling Holes through the Glacier Bed: This potential intervention involves drilling holes through the glacier bed (to either drain water from below the ice before it affects the glacier or to try to freeze the glacier bed artificially) to slow the flow of streams that carry meltwater off the ice sheet into the sea.

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