This is the first of a series of Arctic ice updates contributed by Ice911.org.
No matter where you are in the world, the Arctic and its ice loss affects you.
In California, the impact is obvious — Arctic ice loss has been directly attributed to the California drought, which feeds the wildfires whose smoke you and your family breathe. If you’re in the Midwest or on the East Coast, the extremely cold winters and nor’easter storms are directly attributed to the destabilized jet stream caused by Arctic ice loss. In the South, Arctic ice loss is feeding extreme storms, which cause flooding and torrential downpours that may have affected you or someone you know. And that’s just the United States.
No matter where you live, as long as it’s on planet Earth, temperature rise has affected you. And the loss in Arctic ice is contributing one-third of global average temperature increases.
You’re probably wondering why an area so remote can cause such vast changes. It’s because there have been even bigger changes in the Arctic. The Arctic has lost 80 percent of its summer ice by volume since 1979.
The Planet Lost Its Heat Shield
The Arctic used to act as the planet’s heat shield. The less ice you have in the Arctic in the summer, the less heat is reflected and instead absorbed by the ocean. The more that heat is stored in the northern oceans, the more unstable the weather and the jet stream become.
What’s more, the ice that grows back each winter in the Arctic is very thin and transparent first-year ice. It reflects only a fraction of the amount reflected by multi-year ice — ice that has been building up for multiple years. These days, first-year ice rarely survives to become multi-year ice and rebuild the heat shield that we so badly need to protect our climate, wildlife, and families.
What does this loss in ice and regrowth of unreflective ice leave us with? It’s called the Blue Arctic, and it’s a situation that needs addressing.
The open ocean that’s being exposed absorbs 95 percent of the heat that comes its way instead of ice reflecting 80 percent of the heat coming its way, as it used to be — this is why we’re seeing such large effects on temperature and extreme weather from the Arctic.
The Ice-Free Deadline Is Looming
If we do nothing, all multi-year ice will melt completely such that scientists predict an ice-free Arctic in the summer by 2030, plus or minus 10 years. It could happen by the early 2020s. An ice-free Arctic would devastate the climate as we know it, bringing unparalleled wildfires, extreme storms, drought, and temperature rise.
Luckily, we can do something about the blue Arctic by restoring ice. Ice911 has developed a technology called reflective sand. It is a silica glass microsphere that is white and reflects light like multi-year ice. By spreading the reflective sand, we can begin to rebuild that heat shield. The reflective sand is biologically safe because we’ve co-evolved with it. It will eventually sink to the bottom of the ocean.
Ice911 is a Silicon Valley nonprofit moonshot aiming to mitigate extreme weather and climate change with the strategic application of reflective sand. This reflective sand will help that first-year ice act like multi-year ice and reflect the most heat possible so it can survive to become real multi-year ice. Over time, this can stabilize the climate and prevent more climate devastation from affecting your family and the wildlife around you.
Watch the Ice911 Intro Video