Glaciers are melting. Fast. Research suggests that Arctic ice may be gone within the next 15 years. What will it take to stop our damage? Startups show promising technology to ‘re-freeze’ melting ice caps, providing humanity more time to decarbonize.

One of the many catastrophic effects of climate change is the loss of glaciers and ice caps. As the Earth’s temperature rises, the ice at the poles melts faster than it can regenerate. Ice caps have been deteriorating at approximately 13% per decade over the last 30 years. At this rate, the ice caps will melt fully by 2040. The challenge with the rapid melting of ice caps is that their loss creates a positive feedback loop, where the more the ice caps have already melted, the more they will continue to melt. Ice has a high albedo, reflecting roughly 90% of the solar energy that hits it. On the other hand, the dark blue ocean underneath can only deflect 6% of the solar energy, so it absorbs greater amounts of heat, contributing to the ice caps melting even more. Due to this issue, many scientists agree that the ice caps either have or will reach a tipping point, where the effects of climate change will be irreversible.

As glaciers and ice caps melt, oceans will rise, increasing flooding and threatening infrastructure in coastal cities. Furthermore, the greater absorption of heat after the ice caps melt will result in high levels of climate change, where weather events will become more extreme and less predictable. These extreme weather events put the health and safety of humans, as well as many of our animal companions, at risk.

While the simplest method of avoiding this tipping point would be to decrease humanity’s greenhouse gas emissions to zero, humanity is far from reaching this point, and doing so would not reverse the global warming already experienced. To counteract the impacts of global warming on the ice caps, engineers are working on developing solutions that will slow the loss of Arctic ice melting. One promising solution supported by the United Nations is to refreeze arctic ice. Real Ice, a Welsh start-up collaborating with the Center for Climate Repair at the University of Cambridge, aims to use underwater drones to “Re-Ice” the ice caps.

Real Ice’s process works by drilling holes in arctic ice from underneath and pumping seawater to the ice cap's surface. The flood of seawater removes surface-level snow, which acts as an insulator to the ice. The extremely low temperatures of the ice then freeze the layer of seawater remaining on the ice cap, and repeating this process throughout winter will gradually increase the height of the ice caps. After winter ends, drones will recreate the snow layer to block the harsher solar radiation.

This process and other supplemental plans, such as adding reflective beads to the Arctic to reflect solar radiation, may be critical in protecting Arctic ice. Arctic ecosystems are deteriorating, the weather is becoming more unpredictable, water currents are disrupted, and oceans are rising. Solutions to prevent this loss can buy time for humanity to shift towards a clean energy source.

On the other hand, many scientists are hesitant about relying on large-scale “geo-engineering” solutions, which are solutions that manipulate the Earth’s natural response to environmental change. Many scientists argue that the current understanding of Earth’s inner workings is incomplete, so a solution in one area may have vast unintended consequences in another. For example, scientists are still unsure what the effect of drilling many holes through ancient ice and freezing saltwater oceans on top of freshwater ice caps may be. Furthermore, to reverse the rate of ice loss, companies and governments must deploy drones along one-tenth of the Arctic area, which would require 10 million drones and 7% of global energy production.