Maybe use this!
I think mirrors would be cheaper than lenses for space-based sunlight diversion. With a little work, I’m sure they could work up kilometer-wide sheets of shiny Mylar that could be spread out over the South Pole and angled so that the light is diverted toward the ice 24/7/365. It would need some engines for station-keeping, both because the orbits of the Earth and the mirror won’t stay in sync and because the solar wind will push the mirror out of place.
How about using nuclear weapons to open up a hole in the earth’s mantle and release large volumes of lava to melt the ice?
I realize it would be a complex process. Nuclear weapons can only eject a certain amount of material with each explosion. The hole would have to be deep cone so that an explosion at the bottom will move material up on the sides, and more explosions would be needed to move that material up further and out of the hole.
Channels would also have to be dug, using more nukes, so that the flowing lava will travel away from the hole instead of just building up a volcanic cone. And additional weapon would have to be dropped to break up any solidfying material that would cap the output.
There might be some undesirable consequences to setting off that many nuclear weapons, but if we really need to melt the Antarctic in a hurry people will understand.
The problem with this is that any such mirror array would inevitably be destroyed or damaged by mad scientists attempting to prevent invasions through wormholes. 
Probably not the fastest means but the most sure: continue burning fossil fuels at the current rate of increase.
I’ve got a better way to use nukes to do this. Divert an asteroid that’s going to make a close miss of Earth with them. Someone do the math on how many nuclear bombs it would take to nudge a near miss nickel/iron civilization-ender into an impact near Antarctica.
That’s assuming we have any near-miss rocks that would hit energetic enough to to melt the ice.
This is also assuming that such a large, speedy rock would be moved enough by a few dozen nuclear kisses.
I miss Chuck Norris jokes.
We don’t need an asteroid the size of basketballs and Volkswagons, things like that. We need one the size of Texas! “What kind of damage” you ask…total–a global killer. The end of mankind. Doesn’t matter where it hits, nothing would survive, not even bacteria.
God speed, and good luck to you…
Whilst we are throwing around wildly improbable and not necessarily quick scenarios:
Reconnecting Antarctica with say South America, Africa or Australia would disrupt the cold southern ocean currents. Reptiles lived in Antarctica during the Cretaceous Period when it was part of Gonwandaland.
Use the polar winds to power turbines to pump seawater onto the iceshelfs to melt and erode them.
Increase the rate of sunlight (and heat) absorption by genetially engineering some of the existing lichen species, increasing their survivability, growth season and range.
I think that keeping on keeping on will be the quickest easiest way. Give everyone Humvees and keep pumping out those greenhouse gases. I’m sure we could amp up production of CO2 considerably if we put our shoulders into it.
It’d still be a couple of centuries, most likely, and I doubt very many people would be around to go kayaking in our new watery vacationland.
Girls don’t fart. At least that’s what they tell me.
:dubious:
I, for one, believe them. There’s always a barking spider around to blame.
My first thought would be to start with the ice sheets and cleave them off using strip-mining detonation methods. Ice is relatively fragile and we should be able to fracture it enough to let it float away.
Step 2 would be to start spraying it with sea water. When I have to thaw my Christmas turkey, I run the frozen bird under cold water for a while. I would think that this would work on the edges of the continent. It scales up, right?.. turkey in the sink::continent of ice
You’re probably right - 200 girls will cause the 200 guys to generate as much heat as the Taco Bell would.
Only problem with that explanation of what would happen if a Texas sized asteroid were to hit earth is that everything would not die. It is true that the resulting impact would create so much heat that the oceans would boil away at the rate of 2 feet a second and the surface of the earth will be thousands of degrees there is still microbial life living miles under ground which will be in the only hospitable place on earth. It is just deep enough to protect from the heat of the surface of the earth but just shallow enough to be protected from the heat of the interior of the earths surface.
Life does not quit easily.
um…i was just quoting Billie Bob Thornton’s part from the movie Armegeddon.
I know I thought that was obvious. I was explaining why the movie explanation was incorrect. In retrospect I can see where I was unclear.
Unca Cecil answersthis question.
With a flamethrower?
What about somekind of plant/lichen/fungus, something that covers the continent and soaks up sunlight and melts the ice.
could we not engineer something like that?
Everyone is ignoring the important question. Why are you trying to awaken the Old Ones? That ice was put there for a reason! You have all gone mad, mad I say!!!