• @AgreeableLandscape@lemmy.mlOP
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      2 years ago

      In all seriousness, I don’t see how. Anyone who’s taken a physics class or is familiar with how a refrigerator or air conditioner works knows that you can’t just make cold, you can only take the heat and push it somewhere else. So unless you’re dumping that heat into outer space, you wouldn’t actually be lowering global temperatures because the thermal energy would stay on Earth. Actually, they would be trapped by the same greenhouse gasses that caused climate change. Worse, you consume a lot of energy and generate even more heat overall when trying to cool something down (which is why opening your fridge door in the summer and expecting it to cool the room down is counterproductive), so wouldn’t this make things worse?

      Maybe their goal is not to lower temperatures directly though. Maybe it’s to increase the reflectivity of the Earth so less new sunlight is absorbed. Or, since carbon can be trapped in ice, maybe come kind of carbon resorption? Haven’t looked into it much.

      • @gyrfalcon@beehaw.org
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        32 years ago

        I am pretty sure its the reflectivity thing. Looking at this, seems like open ocean absorbs 94% of the light it gets, while even plain ice absorbs only 50%.

      • mekhos
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        22 years ago

        Oh but you see - they pump the generated heat harmlessly away, waaay up into the atmosphere.