Glacier melt plugin

The glacier melt plugin estimates the amount of global glacier ice melted (kg) as a result of carbon emissions. This enables Impact Framework users to estimate the glacier ice melted due to their software applications.

This is based on back-of-envelope calculations shared on Ken Caldeira's blog here: https://kencaldeira.wordpress.com/2018/03/24/how-much-ice-is-melted-by-each-carbon-dioxide-emission/

It's not a super rigorous calculation, and should only be used for illustrative purposes and not used as the basis for any scientific endeavours, audits etc.

Parameters

• carbon: the amount of carbon emitted per timestep in gCO2eq

Global config

This plugin does not require any global config

Returns

• glacier-melt: g of ice melted

Implementation

The glacier melt plugin is a very simple plugin with no global config. It operates only on the carbon value provided in the inputs array in your manifest file.

Usage

To run the plugin, an instance of GlacierMelt must be created. Then, the plugin's execute() method can be called.

This is how you could run the model in Typescript:

import {GlacierMelt} from './lib/glacier-melt';

const plugin = GlacierMelt();

const result = plugin.execute([
  {
    timestamp: '2023-08-06T00:00',
    duration: 3600,
    carbon: 10,
  },
]);

console.log(result);

Example Manifest

name: glacier melt demo
description: a minimal manifest executing the glacier melt plugin for a single timestep
tags:
initialize:
  plugins:
    glacier-melt: 
      path: 'glacier-melt'
      method: GlacierMelt
tree:
  children:
    child-0:
      defaults:
        cpu/thermal-design-power: 100
      pipeline:
        - glacier-melt
      inputs:
        - timestamp: 2023-07-06T00:00
          duration: 1
          carbon: 20