ENVIRONMENT
Experiment to refreeze Arctic sea ice deemed a success
September 25, 2024 - A team of scientists has successfully refrozen thinning Arctic ice by pumping seawater onto the surface ice shelf, adding half a metre of thickness.
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Inspired by the traditional Dutch technique of ice thickening to create natural ice skating rinks, an international team of scientists has carried out an experiment to see if they could refreeze Arctic sea ice.
From January to May 2024, at Cambridge Bay, Canada, a team comprised of two groups of scientists, called Real Ice and Arctic Reflections, drilled holes through the sea ice to reach the ocean, then pumped water onto the snow that sits on top.
The water then flooded air pockets in the snow and froze, turning the snow to ice on an area the size of a football pitch. This also increased the shelf’s thermal conductivity, allowing cold Arctic air to spread through it and trigger the growth of more ice on the underside – adding a combined total of 50 centimetres of thickness.
As global warming intensifies, so too does the reduction in the extent of the Arctic ice – now millions of square kilometres smaller today than it was a few decades ago.
Deployed at a large enough scale, the technique could buy time while we attempt to cut the emissions needed to halt climate change.
Making the ice last longer during the summer adds extra weeks of reflection of solar radiation back into space – reducing the amount of energy absorbed by the planet.
The team is to return to Cambridge Bay in November to conduct a larger-scale experiment over one kilometre of sea ice, with a view to trying to add one metre of thickness.