Scientists Attempt to Refreeze Arctic Sea Ice to Combat Climate Crisis

The Arctic Sea Ice Meltdown

Speeding across rapidly melting Arctic ice on a snowmobile gave me a vivid feel for its beauty and fragility. The brilliant white landscape gleamed ahead, while the sky blue pools of meltwater jetted up on to my boots.

The Refreeze Experiment

When I visited Cambridge Bay in northern Canada at the start of this month, the melt season had hit with brutal speed: temperatures were 5-10C above normal, kickstarting the melting almost overnight. But I was there to report on a bold attempt to do something that might at first sound crazy: refreezing the Arctic sea ice.

The Data Analysis

Global heating has destroyed about 40% of the Arctic’s summer sea ice in the last 45 years. It is perhaps the most visible impact of the climate crisis. Worse, the ice reflects the sun’s heat 10 times better than the dark sea below, so losing it creates a vicious circle of melting and heating.

The Impact Analysis

In Cambridge Bay, researchers from the Real Ice project braved temperatures of -40C to drill small holes in the sea ice and then pump ocean water up on to its surface. That froze almost immediately and thickened the ice by about 50cm. When I visited, the 450 metre by 450 metre area they worked on was clearly melting more slowly, forming a sparkling white island in a growing sea of blue.

The Prediction

Next year, Real Ice researchers will use underwater drones, already tested in prototype off Finland, to make the holes in the ice with a heated probe. Their hope is that this could be scalable, with a rough estimate of $10bn over the longer term to halt the annual shrinking of Arctic sea ice.