These days, we are (or at least some of us) trying to prevent the Arctic ice sheets from disappearing. But in a more naive time, we thought it would be a good thing. One Russian scientist in particular was especially supportive.
There were many proposals to melt the Arctic ice caps. In the 1870s, Harvard geologist Nathan Shaler suggested redirecting the warm Japan Current into the Arctic. He said:
Whenever the Alaskan gates to the pole are unbarred, the whole of the ice-cap of the circumpolar regions must at once melt away; all the plants of the northern continents, now kept in narrow bounds by the arctic cold, would begin their march towards the pole...It is not too much to say that the life-sustaining power of the lands north of forty degrees of latitude would be doubled by the breaking down of the barrier which cuts off the Japanese current from the pole.
Fast forward to the 1950s. Petr Borisov, a Soviet scientist suggested using a dam across the Bering Strait to suck the cold water out of the Arctic and therefore pull warm water from the Atlantic in and therefore melt the ice. Just how was he planning to get the power needed to move all that water?
But with what else but nuclear power? It was the 50s after all. Mighty power of atom will allow us to move oceans and conquer nature, comrade!
Borisov speculated only good could come out of this. It would make Siberia much more habitable by raising the temperature and melting the permafrost (something that we’re also worried about now thanks to Climate Change). He suggested that the loss of albedo from the melting of the ice caps would make the shores along the Arctic the same temperature as Ukraine. Most of Russia was and is inhospitable due to the cold, and the Soviets were investing heavily in trying to aleviate that, performing experiments in dropping coal dust on the permafrost in the hopes that the loss of albedo would melt it. The elimination of ice would allow ships to cross year round. He even predicted that the heat would bring rain to the Sahara, presumably by moving the Hadley Cell North. But, Borisov, just like one of his forerunners Herman Sorgel, who wanted to dam the Mediterranean, was also motivated by idealism. He felt that the cooperation needed amongst both the Soviet Union and the United States would help thaw relations (rimshot). He said that Alaska would also benefit heavily. He even included transportation corridors in his dams, what could be a better symbol of peace than that? And, he said, even if the Greenland ice sheets melted, the rise in sea levels would be modest.
The idea was criticized from the moment it was unveiled. Thankfully, there were many who understood the risks of tampering with nature like this. Critics suggested that it would move the Gobi desert northward and destroy a lot of productive land and that all the cold water pumped out would cool the Arctic, the opposite of what was trying to be achieved. Others questioned whether the power was sufficient to significantly impact the climate.
Borisov persisted, even writing a whole book Can Man Change the Climate in 1973. But I have no idea what became of him and I can’t even find any photos. Such was the nature of the Soviet Union.
It’s easy to laugh it this now. It just seems like one of those ridiculous megaprojects from an era when we thought we could control nature, and the fact that it was to use nuclear power makes it even more of a 1950s cliche. But it was just how things were. And ironically, we may wind up seeing Borisov’s dream become a reality thanks to all of our carbon emissions.