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16, 2011 Mongolian City Hopes To Cool Off With Huge, 'Artificial
Ice Shields' How do you keep a cold city cool during the summer?
Mongolia's capital city — , its average temperature at the peak
of summer is 72 degrees Fahrenheit — has an idea that sounds
adventurous. During the cold months, the city of Ulan Bator
wants to create artificial glaciers that will then melt slowly
during summer, absorbing some of the heat and helping to keep
the temperatures down. Here's how Wired explains the process in
their piece today: "The aim is to build artificial ice shields —
or "naleds" — that occur naturally in far northern climates and
can grow to be more than seven meters thick. They grow when
river water pushes through cracks in the surface of the ice
during the day and then freezes to add an extra layer of ice
when night falls. "Engineering consortium EMI-ECOS will try to
replicate this process by creating holes in the ice that is
forming over the Tuul r