Abstract
The Earth’s Arctic ice cover has diminished rapidly. NOAA reported last
December that 95% of the most-reflective multi-year ice has disappeared
over the past 40 years. The effects of this lost reflectivity in the
Arctic is to increase the net energy influx to the Arctic accelerating
heating locally and worldwide, as well as affecting the jet stream, all
leading to increasing climate-related impacts on populations and
ecosystems worldwide. When considering any interventions to attempt to
restore global ecosystems, the safety and reversibility of these
interventions must be considered a key metric. As an example, the focus
of our work is to restore a natural ecosystem (reflective multi-year ice
in the Arctic) that was there until very recently. Our focus is on using
a safe material, hollow glass microspheres, made of components
(primarily silica) that are ubiquitous in the Earth’s ecosystem, and
that are not in a respirable range, and that do not have a tendency to
take up oil-based or other toxic pollutants. We will detail these and
further safety considerations in such approaches in our presentation.