TM12 | Active Conservation of Ice-Sheets to Mitigate Sea-Level Rise: Research Needs and Approaches
Active Conservation of Ice-Sheets to Mitigate Sea-Level Rise: Research Needs and Approaches
Convener: John Moore | Co-conveners: Christine Dow, Brent Minchew, Ken Mankoff, Michael Wolovick
Mon, 15 Apr, 19:00–20:00 (CEST)
 
Room K1
Mon, 19:00
"Climate interventions (or geoengineering) to avoid the worst damages of climate change are being increasingly raised by a range of actors from individual researchers to governments, international agencies and non-governmental organizations. Cryospheric-specific climate interventions focused on sea level rise have been discussed for at least the past 40 years, but 2023 has had a significant increase in these discussions including several new research papers, two community workshops, and an AGU Town Hall event. The workshops took place in Chicago (Oct 2/3) and Stanford (Dec 9/10), and included ~60 glaciologists. Methods discussed focused mainly on ocean interventions (blocking warm water from reaching the ice sheet) and subglacial interventions (removing subglacial water or heat to slow down ice streams). The workshops were centred primarily on glaciological needs - what do we need to know and how do we fill knowledge gaps quickly and robustly. While the skill sets of earth scientists are naturally technical, there is also recognition that social licence, governance, ethics, legal and financing must be properly considered as well.

These two recent meetings were held in North America and primarily attended by North American glaciologists. This Community Meeting intends to include European and other EGU attendees in the discussion, with the aim of creating broad community involvement - even if involvement does not mean support. We will begin by summarizing the background, focus, discussions, and outcomes from the Chicago and Stanford workshops, and then open the floor to a community discussion.

Attendees are welcome to listen to the community update, or actively participate in the discussion. We seek broad community input on what a responsible intervention strategy would look like, how to think about the risks of intervening (or not intervening) to reduce rates of sea-level rise, and additional intervention approaches or other methods to reduce sea level rise rates beyond the necessary (but perhaps now insufficient) step of emission reduction."