Real Ice, a British start-up, is currently developing technology to slow the melting of Arctic ice. An ambitious project which nevertheless raises many concerns.
An effective method?
The Arctic ice has been melting inexorably for several decades now and this melting even seems accelerate in recent years. However, the melting of the North Pole ice cap could have serious consequences on the entire Earth, which acts, among other things, as a regulator of the global climate.
In an attempt to limit this melting as much as possible and protect the frozen ocean landscape of the Arctic, a British start-up, called Real Ice, has developed a technique toartificially create ice near the North Pole.
This method is quite “simple”, in fact it consists of inserting submersible electric pumps under the ocean ice to pump water from the sea at depth and bring it back to the surface. The water then freezes by accumulating on the layer of ice already present, which creates a thicker ice cap and then limits its melting.
The company has already been testing this method for around two years near the pole. The first tests took place in Alaska and had the main objective of verifying that the equipment could work and above all resist intense climatic conditions of this region. Last January, it was near Cambridge Bay in Canada that this method was implemented, with, according to Real Ice, rather convincing results.
Since November, new tests have been carried out in Cambridge Bay with up to 40 000m² landscapes covered in ice. According to researchers from this British start-up, the ice cream could already be returned 10cm thicker at the locations tested during the first 10 days of the test.
Real ice’s ultimate goal is to thicken Arctic ice by more than 600 000km²an area almost equivalent to that of France, in order to slow down or even reverse the melting of the ice. To achieve this, the company believes it can automate the process using underwater drones powered by green hydrogen, which greatly limits its environmental impact.
An idea that remains controversial
For several years, there have been numerous ideas and innovations relating to geoengineering, i.e. techniques used by humans to control, modify and master the earth’s environment. Nevertheless, most are far from being well received by the scientific community.
In November 2024, for example, a report co-written by dozens of scientists around the world warned of the potentially harmful effects represented by the proliferation of polar geoengineering projectspointing in particular to the environmental risks of too much human influx in this fragile region that is the Arctic.
Thus, the innovation, although so simple and seeming so effective on paper, proposed by Real Ice is no exception to the rule. This is, for example, judged extremely questionable by Liz Bagshaw, Associate Professor in Polar Environmental Change at the University of Bristol. According to him, this could ultimately have unforeseen adverse effects on the environmentwhich could, for example, disrupt an already fragile balance in this region of the world.
Faced with this type of criticism, Andrea Ceccolini, co-director general of Real Ice does not deny that the project could lead to changes in the marine environment, such as disruption of algae growth which could be affected by the additional ice thickness.
However, he also assures that doing nothing to limit the melting of the ice in the Arctic would have even more dramatic consequences for the protection of ecosystems, on a global scale.
Article reference:
A controversial plan to refreeze the Arctic is seeing promising results. But scientists warn of big risks, CNN (12 décembre 2024), Laura Paddison
