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The Many Failures and Few Successes of Zany Iceberg Towing Schemes

1825: Tucked in among various environmental schemes including one plan for “conveying by means of pipes and air-pumps, the sea breeze to London,” we find this early 19th century author deriding “the old project of towing icebergs into the southern ocean, for the purpose of equalising the temperature of the earth.” Now, that’s some ambition. Where’s that spirit gone in modern times?

1835: It’s not just ships that tow icebergs, but the opposite can happen, too. A British expedition in the Arctic got stuck on an iceberg, which proceeded to get blown around the ocean.

It was perhaps the first time that an iceberg had the honor conferred upon it of towing a British ship, although we know that the direct contrary was once in contemplation, of towing the icebergs by British ships to the tropics, for the purpose of diffusing their refrigerating power on the countries situated between them.

Mid 1800s: According to the Encyclopedia of Antartica, small icebergs were towed from southern Chile up to Valparaiso as part of the brewery supply chain. A Chilean researcher said, “The icebergs were towed by ships of the conventional type. Sometimes the icebergs were supplied with sails to utilize the prevailing winds. The ice was used for refrigerating purposes in the breweries and was generally substituted for artificial ice.” Apparently, the business continued until about the turn of the century.

Read more at The Atlantic. For an inside look at the research process behind this story, read Alexis Madrigal’s post on Google+