You can get the whole article here. Just copy the url, go to the archive site and paste in search.
Wild idea #1: “ The glaciologists have often felt ignored. In recent years, they have begun to bicker, largely behind closed doors, about whether to push a more interventionist approach. Some now think that we should try to control the flow of the planet’s most vulnerable glaciers. They say that with the right technology, we might be able to freeze them in place, stopping their slide into the seas.”
“ According to the leading theory, the layer of water underneath it thinned, perhaps by draining into the underside of another glacier. Having lost its lubrication, the glacier slowed down and sank toward the bedrock below. At its base, a cooling feedback loop took hold. Eventually, enough of it froze to its bed to keep it in place.”
Wild idea #2: “ He imagined drilling down to its subglacial lakes to pump the water out of them. He imagined it gushing from the pumps’ outlets and freezing into tiny crystals before it even splashed onto the Antarctic surface, “like a snow gun.” The remaining water underneath the ice would likely flow toward the empty lakes, drying out portions of the glacier’s underside. With luck, a cooling feedback loop would be triggered. Thwaites would freeze in place. Catastrophic sea-level rise would be avoided. Humanity would have time to get its act together.”
Wild idea #3: “… wrapping the Earth in a layer of aerosols to dim the sun, he merely wants to intervene at the glacier”
Wild ideas #4 & #5: “ Another team of scientists has suggested that mind-bogglingly large swaths of insulating fabric could be draped on top of vulnerable glaciers to keep them cold. Still another team has proposed that a curtain—made of plastic or some other material—be stretched across the 75-mile-wide zone where Thwaites meets the sea, to divert the warm water that is flowing underneath it.”
He then spends the rest of the article explaining the science-fiction-like logistics and technology needed to implement Wild Idea #2.
Fun read for light entertainment.
Let them play with the glaciers in the privacy of antarctica, if they want. It’ll keep them busy. No aerosols or other schemes to block out the sun. Good grief. That was a Simpsons story line.