Propping up glaciers to avoid cataclysmic sea level rise

[rangerrebew]

Propping up glaciers to avoid cataclysmic sea level rise
September 20, 2018 by Marlowe Hood
 

As global warming outpaces efforts to tame it, scientists have proposed building massive underwater structures to prevent an Antarctic glacier the size of Britain from sliding into the sea and lifting the world's oceans by several metres.

The more modest of two engineering schemes—which is still on the scale of a Panama or Suez Canal—to shore up Thwaites Glacier would require the construction of Eiffel Tower-sized columns resting on the seabed to support the glacier's ocean-facing edge, or ice shelf.

Option Two is a 100-metre tall underwater wall, or berm, running 80-100 kilometres (55-60 miles) beneath the ice shelf to block bottom-flowing warm water that erodes the glacier's underbelly, rendering it unstable.


Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2018-09-propping-glaciers-cataclysmic-sea.html#jCp

[rangerrebew]

Do I smell nations wanting the U.S. to pay for this?  If they can't get money from the Paris Accords, how about propping up glaciers?

[Fishrrman]

1615:
Don Quixote, tilting at windmills.

2018:
Michael Wolovick, propping up glaciers.

[Suppressed]

You don't want to "prop up" the glacier, as that just enhances the problem of warm water getting under the glacier and lubricating the bed.

These are designed to either hold back the glacier -- thickening it -- or directly blocking the warn water from coming under the glacier.  I don't see these as being at all cost-effective.