London, Dec 12 (IANS) We could refreeze the Arctic, and it wouldn't even cost that much, say scientists. Two studies explore the possibility that a solution could be found to the problem of global warming melting the ice caps on the North Pole.
The scientist who is lead author of both the studies claims that "any significant nation" could find the resources to carry out the operation, the Daily Mail reported Wednesday.
The only significant question, he says, is whether we should.
The amount of ice in the Arctic Ocean shrank to an all time low in September, with the total area covered now half what it was in the eighties.
David Keith, professor of applied physics at Harvard University, is lead author on papers published in Nature Climate Change and Environmental Research Letters which speculate as to how we could restore the polar ice, according to the Mail.
"The really hard questions here aren't mostly technical. They're questions about what kind of planet we want and who we are," he told Canadian newspaper The Windsor Star.
Professor Keith used climate models to suggest that injecting reflective particles into the atmosphere could reduce the amount of sunlight reaching the Earth, engineering a regional effect that could bring ice back to the Arctic.
His paper claims that by reducing the penetration of sunlight by just 0.5 percent could be possible to restore the sea-ice around the North Pole back to pre-industrial era levels.
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