[extropy-chat] No frozen Europe...

[Robert Bradbury]

Sigh... (I thought global warming would be a cheap way to reduce the number
of European luddites opposed to GMOs :-|)

At any rate, it appears that 8000 barges (@$50 billion) put out into the
North Atlantic to increase the quantity of salty sea ice which forms (think
snow making) every year could solve the problem of keeping the Gulf Stream
flowing.  (The salty ice melts in the spring/summer producing cold & dense
salt water that sinks acting as a suction pump which draws the tropical
water towards the arctic.)  If anyone is ambitious and can find the actual
article I would love to know what fraction of this is the startup cost and
what fraction is the annual operating cost.

Even if its an annual cost, it works out to ~$200/person(in the U.S.).  I
suspect that is cheap compared with other alternatives (For example, I think
the U.S. is giving away $2000+ tax credits on hybrid cars which aren't even
going to come close to solving the problem the way the barges will).

Oh yes, another article I ran across suggests that the Antarctic Krill are
sucking down more CO2 than had previously been thought so one positive
effect of increased atmospheric CO2 would be to increase food supplies at
the bottom of the oceanic food pyramid.

Robert

1. http://www.physorg.com/news10579.html
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