UK Startup Plans to Refreeze Arctic Ice

A startup based in the UK is planning to employ technology that will refreeze the ice in the Arctic, attempting to solve the long standing issue of melting Arctic ice brought on by climate change.

Over the past three years, the oldest and largest sections of the ice in the region have shrunk significantly. The consequences of this are noteworthy and include a reduction in the amount of heat reflected back into the atmosphere, as well as rising sea levels.

Preventing greenhouse gas emissions from entering the atmosphere is a step towards slowing the melting of the ice, but some companies are engaging in a much more direct approach. Welsh startup Real Ice, which participated in a United Nations “for tomorrow” accelerator, is working on technology that it says could refreeze sections of the Arctic ice and boost its thickness.

“This is ecosystem preservation,” Andrea Ceccolini, CEO of Real Ice told Sifted. “We’re trying to maintain, at the very least, the ice that we still have, which is roughly four million km squared at the end of the summer. And if we can, we would love to restore what it was in the 1980s, which was over seven million [kilometers] squared.”

The startup is in a race against time. Ceccolini says, “The latest research shows that within the next 10 to 20 years we’re going to see the first blue ocean event, where there is no sea ice in the Arctic at the end of the summer period, for the first time in two million years.”

Startup’s technology to refreeze Arctic ice

The company’s technology takes its inspiration from early research carried out by Arizona State University and the University of Washington. The startup began as a volunteer project at Bangor University in northern Wales. Graduates there got the idea to bring the concepts of the earlier study to fruition. They then transformed into a startup two years ago.

The technology functions by sending out underwater drones, powered by green hydrogen and dispatched from floating platforms. The drones bore holes in the ice from below. Through the hole, water is then pulled from under the ice and sprayed on top of it.

Spraying water onto the surface of the ice removes the layer of snow which settles on it during winter. The snow insulates it and prevents the ice from expanding.

“With the snow on it, the ice will struggle to grow much thicker through the winter season,” Ceccolini explains to Sifted. Removing the snow and adding water to the surface will allow a new layer of ice to form, and the overall temperature of the ice block will be lowered, meaning its thickness will increase.

Real Ice plans to spend the next three years carrying out tests and building prototypes. It is currently working in conjunction with the University of Cambridge’s Centre for Climate Repair. Following that, it will begin its first scaled-up operation. The operation will cover 100 square kilometers (about 38 square miles) of ice in Canada.