Sand in the Arctic? Snow way!

For this week's current event post, I would like to continue our discussion on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), specifically Climate Action. One fact that was listed on the United Nation's website in regards to climate change that caught my attention was "Oceans have warmed, the amounts of snow and ice have diminished and sea level has risen. From 1901 to 2010, the global average sea level rose by 19 cm as oceans expanded due to warming and ice melted. The Arctic’s sea ice extent has shrunk in every successive decade since 1979, with 1.07 million km² of ice loss every decade" (United Nations). This was very shocking to me and motivated me to look deeper into what efforts are being done to savor our sea ice levels. I found an article on The Guardian that is perfectly aligned with the UN's goal of taking "urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts" (United Nations).

Currently, there is research being conducted on a lake in northern Alaska on whether spreading sand over the sea ice could preserve what little we have left. This experiment is being carried out by Leslie Field, founder of Ice911 and Silicone Valley engineer, at the North Meadow Lake near Utqiagvik.

Global warming as proved to have devastating and ongoing affects on the Arctic environment and life in the Arctic. Unfortunately, there isn't much time left. Researchers and scientists predict the sea ice will be completely vanished by summertime in the 2040s (Milman, Oliver). This is incredibly sad because that is only roughly 22 years away, and if we look back at the sea ice levels over the course of the last 30 years, the changes are astronomical.

Leslie Field started her research after being inspired by Al Gore's climate change discussion he calls An Inconvenient Truth back in 2006. For the last decade, she and her team of researchers have been testing different kinds of materials on a smaller scale, such as in laboratories and smaller lakes in Minnesota and California. She claims the solution of sprinkling sand could save what little amount of sea ice we have left and would provide the world a little more time to cut back on greenhouse emissions (Milman, Oliver).

Ice911's biggest challenge is the cost acquiring the sand and finding an efficient way for the sand to be distributed. To promote their goal of reducing greenhouse emissions, the team is confident in their idea that a boat will be the best option, rather than an aircraft. "Field isn’t targeting the whole Arctic region – instead focusing on areas such as Fram Strait, between Greenland and the Norwegian island of Svalbard – but the cost to festoon 19,000 sq miles of ice in silica would still be around $750m, not including labour" (Oliver, Milman).

Funding for such an effort will need to be through the United Nations or private donors, or possibly the World Bank depending on the success rate of the experiment.

Through all this, I was curious to know where they are getting the sand, and if introducing that material to a new environment will negatively impact the animals living in the Arctic. The article also did not clearly explain why or how the sand can preserve sea ice. I would be very interested in knowing how they came to this conclusion and what sparked the idea of using sand in the first place.

I think I can speak for everyone when I say this, but I truly hope their efforts of spreading sand really does protect the snow and ice in the Arctic, and with little effect to the current environment's status. What are you going to do to take action and improve climate change?

Thanks for reading!

McKenzie T.

United Nations. “Climate Change - Sustainable Development Goals.” United Nations, United Nations, www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/climate-change-2/.

Milman, Oliver. “Could Sprinkling Sand Save the Arctic's Shrinking Sea Ice?” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 23 Apr. 2018, www.theguardian.com/world/2018/apr/23/sprinkling-sand-save-arctic-shrinking-sea-ice.