Recent Highlights Dr. Leslie Field teaches an annual class at Stanford on Engineering and Climate Change (Fall Quarter).  The final lecture of the quarter included the Ice911 project, and (almost) all the  class lectures will be offered by Stanford on YouTube soon. Slides from Ice911 talk at the AGU conference in SF Dec. 7, 2012. Dr. Field was an invited panelist on November 8, 2012 at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington DC to discuss "Soft Geoengineering" and Ice911.  Ms. Susan Strehlow has joined Ice911 as Executive Director, bringing her senior-level financial and management skills to the project.  Welcome! Ice911 is one of the projects featured in an article on "Soft Geoengineering" by Robert Olson, published in Environment Magazine September 2012. 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 were honored to have been nominated.

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 have obtained promising and dramatic results in our small-scale testing on a lake in California's Sierra Nevada mountains near Truckee, and are continuing to develop our materials, deployment approach and the instrumentation monitor our field tests. 

Ice911 represents a new approach, that of Eco-engineering (a phrase coined by Professor Stephen Schneider to describe the project).  We've obtained results that show that this approach works.  Now we're working to accelerate the project.  As this year's accelerating ice melt and the recent superstorm have shown, the world needs approaches like this now.

By acting to slow down the melt now, we are working to 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.