Climate Break

Real Ice, with Simon Woods

Episode Summary

Aqua Freezing is a proposed renewable energy method to slow Arctic ice loss by pumping seawater onto the surface, where it refreezes and thickens ice. This week, we spoke with Simon Woods, co-founder and executive chairman of Real Ice, about how this approach could delay a “Blue Ocean Event” and buy time for emissions cuts, despite high costs and scaling challenges. For a transcript, please visit https://climatebreak.org/real-ice-with-simon-woods/.

Episode Notes

Real Ice, a UK based start-up, has been on the forefront of exploring the viability of this new technology. Aqua Freezing involves drilling holes through sea ice to pump out the sea water below and refreeze it on the surface. Once the water freezes, it thickens existing ice to the surface. Adding snow insulation in late winter is expected to help ice persist through summer melts, thereby reducing the risk of a "Blue Ocean Event." This solution targets climate change by maintaining Arctic ice cover, which can stabilize local ecosystems and moderate global climate impacts. If the project is successful, it is projected to postpone the loss of ice caps by approximately 17 years for each year this is completed. For every four feet of water pumped onto the surface, it is projected that the ice will cover around 3 feet. 


The Decline of Arctic Sea Ice

As climate change heightens temperatures and alters climatic conditions, summer sea ice in the Arctic is melting rapidly. By the mid 2030s, it is predicted that a “Blue Ocean Event” (or BOE) will occur, meaning that the Arctic Ocean is expected to have less than one million square kilometers of sea ice. This equates to just 15% of the Arctic’s seasonal minimum ice cover of the late 1970s. As ice continues to melt, more of the ocean will be exposed to the sun's rays, thus absorbing more heat and accelerating warming. The Arctic has warmed four times faster than the rest of the world since 1979, largely due to this positive feedback loop known as Arctic amplification. Since the 1980s, the amount of Arctic sea ice has declined by approximately 13% each decade. As the BOE unfolds, it will trigger significant impacts, including droughts, heatwaves, accelerated thawing of terrestrial permafrost (releasing emissions in the process), and sea level rise. The Arctic plays a critical role in climate stabilization by acting as a large reflective surface, helping to cool the planet and maintain a stable global temperature. The BOE is thus a major climatic tipping point with catastrophic global consequences. A new methodology has been proposed to protect and restore Arctic sea ice known as Aqua Freezing. This approach uses renewable energy-powered pumps to distribute seawater on existing Arctic ice, allowing it to refreeze and thicken, helping to maintain climatic stability.

The plan aims to target over 386,000 square miles of Arctic sea ice, an area larger than California. The process of refreezing already shows promise in field tests conducted over the past two years in Alaska and Canada. Proponents of refreezing Arctic sea ice believe that this technique would buy the region time while we make the necessary emissions cuts to curb the impacts of climate change. Refreezing ice would also preserve the albedo effect, which reflects sunlight back into space, preventing warming. 

Although AquaFreezing offers a potential solution to combat Arctic melting, scientists and policymakers doubt whether sea ice can be grown over a long enough period to make a true difference in the climate crisis. Further, the project is quite costly, equating to over 5 trillion dollars and demanding more steel than the US produces in a single year. The project would require 10 million pumps; however, this would only cover 10% of the Arctic Ocean’s roughly 4 million square mile size. To cover the entire area would require 100 million pumps and roughly 100 million tons of steel each year. The US currently produces around 80 to 90 million tons of steel a year, so covering just 10% of Arctic ice would require 13% of US steel production. The production required for the project could lead to immense environmental degradation and added emissions in the process. 

 

About Our Guest

Simon Woods, co-founder and Executive Chairperson of Real Ice, is hopeful that this solution will buy the region time while we make the necessary emissions cuts to curb climate change. Real Ice believes this innovative solution can preserve sea ice and thus work to combat climate change.

 

Resources

Further Reading

For a transcript, please visit https://climatebreak.org/real-ice-with-simon-woods/.

Episode Transcription

Ethan: I'm Ethan Elkind, and this is Climate Break. Climate solutions in a hurry. Today's proposal: using renewable energy-powered pumps to thicken Arctic sea ice. We spoke to Simon Woods, co-founder and executive chairman of Real Ice, about their Aqua Freezing approach.

Mr. Woods: One of the key systems that we're all concerned about is Arctic sea ice levels, which have been shrinking, melting significantly over the last few decades, and we are, we're reaching a point where there's a real possibility that in the next 10 to 15 years, we'll have what's called a Blue Ocean event in the Arctic, where instead of a lovely white reflective surface, we're going to have dark blue ocean that absorbs the energy from the sun in the summer, and that will just exacerbate the, the heating effects that we're seeing from ocean heating all over the world.

Ethan: A Blue Ocean event is exactly what real ice is trying to prevent through Aqua Freezing.

Mr. Woods: The idea is that you pump water from below the ice onto the top of the ice in the winter, and it freezes quickly. So if we flood that snow, what we're doing is turning snow into slush, which turns into ice, and we're increasing the conductivity, and so we create ice on top. But we also, really importantly, we encourage the growth of ice from below.

Ethan: Though Aqua Freezing is a promising climate solution, it will take multi-level and multinational support to implement it at a meaningful scale.

Mr. Woods: There will have to be kind of government-level support for for these kind of initiatives. And that will bring with it encouragement for large energy providers and large engineering companies to get involved.

Ethan: To learn more about using Aqua Freezing to protect and restore Arctic Sea Ice, visit ClimateBreak.org.