In The News Announcing Ice911's First Raffle!! To enter, donate by January 15, 2012. Details in the December 2011 Update. Dr. Field has just finished teaching for the 2nd time a new class at Stanford this Autumn quarter on Engineering and Climate Change, and for a short while all the lectures can be found for free online.  The final (10th) lecture of the quarter includes a current update on the Ice911 project (starts at 24 minutes into the lecture). ___ Ice911 represents a new approach, that of Eco-engineering (a phrase coined by Stephen Schneider to describe the project).  ___ Richard Ellis' book "On Thin Ice" is a deep and poignant look at the problem of climate change in the Arctic, and well worth a look. ___ Ice911 was nominated for the Tech Museum's annual international awards program that honors innovators from around the world who are applying technology to benefit humanity. While we didn't win, we're honored to have been nominated.  The work continues! www.techawards.org/about/ ___ Follow this link for a blog on Ice911 by Jim Fruchterman, President of Benetech. Jim's Blog ___ Arctic ice "is at tipping point" August 28, 2008 By Richard Black Environment correspondent, BBC News website Scientists suggest the Arctic is already at a climatic "tipping point"

Global climate change is ongoing. Are there any short-term yet reversible measures we can take to reduce future ecological damage while longer-term solutions are researched and developed?

Enter Ice911: 

Ice911 Research Corporation's charitable mission is the development and rigorous scientific evaluation of an engineering approach to slow one of the far-reaching effects of global warming. The technique preserves polar and glacial ice and polar habitat using a localized and ecologically respectful “planetary band-aid” that can be put in place quickly - and that can be removed once it's no longer needed.

"There is no question in my mind that Dr. Field's work is one of the half dozen or so most important research projects underway globally on mitigating climate change - measured by ability to provide large scale (as opposed to marginal) leverage on the problem.  The reason for its importance stems from the dearth of options to control warming already underway from CO2 emissions. "

Armond Cohen, Executive Director Clean Air Task Force

Ice911 is an engineering approach to reduce the melting of the ice. It is a solution that can be rapidly implemented. It has the potential to slow down the melt, provide interim mammal habitat, and perhaps even rebuild the ice.

"The polar bears are in real trouble, but this project gives me hope."

Professor Terry Root, Woods Institute, Stanford

The consequences of letting the ice continue to melt include:

• destruction of habitat and possible extinction for polar bears and other mammals
• a positive feedback loop, leading to faster ocean heating as more ice melts
• the ice-albedo feedback effect is estimated to account for 20% of global warming
• rising sea levels from oceanic temperature rise and glacial ice melt

We obtained dramatic results for snow retention using our materials last Winter and Spring (2010-2011) on a lake and a ski area in California's Sierra Nevada mountains near Truckee - see the December 2011 Update for details (on the left).  Now we're improving our materials and deployment approach and continuing to develop the instrumentation package to monitor our field tests, and we're working with two promising materials suppliers - stay tuned for our progress.

We've obtained results that show that this approach works.  Now we need to accelerate the project to the next level, to continue to improve our materials and deployment methods, and to see if this approach might be useful for permafrost as well.  For all this, we need some additional funding.  We're holding our first raffle to help with the fundaising.  Details in the December 2011 Update (left bar).

By acting to slow down the melt now, we give ourselves the chance to reduce future ecological damage. The short-term Ice911 solution is meant to give the world critically needed time to develop and implement the longer-term solutions of energy efficiency and sustainable energy alternatives.

Ice911 Research Corporation has been formed as a charitable initiative to conduct the research, development and testing to accomplish these goals.