Indigenous peoples living in the Arctic rely on sea ice for many aspects of their lives, from hunting and fishing to travel and cultural practices. Owing to human-driven climate change, the ice is disappearing at an alarming pace. According to data compiled by NASA and the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC), a research organization based at the University of Colorado Boulder, the extent of Arctic sea ice cover has decreased by more than 12% per decade since satellite records began. Scientists even predict that the region could experience its first near-ice-free summer as early as the 2030s.
The loss of sea ice threatens coastal communities in many ways, jeopardizing traditional livelihoods while accelerating coastal erosion and amplifying the impacts of sea level rise.
To slow the melting of Arctic ice, researchers have proposed a number of innovative but controversial solutions, including spreading glass beads across the ice to bounce sunlight back into space, and spraying sea-salt aerosols into low-lying clouds to increase their reflectivity to slow down heating effects. In 2017, astrophysicist Steven Desch also proposed what was then considered a wild idea: Using millions of wind-powered pumps to draw seawater onto the surface of the ice during winter, allowing it to freeze and thicken the ice sheet.
“It was completely a crazy method, super expensive — he priced it at $500 billion at the time,” Andrea Ceccolini, CEO of Real Ice, a U.K.-government-funded and UK-based climate tech startup, told Mongabay, in reference to Desch’s proposal. “But there was an idea there.”
Now, Real Ice is pursuing a variation of Desch’s original concept in the Arctic community of Ikaluktutiak, also known as Cambridge Bay, in Canada’s northernmost territory of Nunavut. Ceccolini says the idea has evolved through advances in field experiments, computer modeling and engineering. Desch serves as an adviser for the Real Ice project.
The long-term feasibility and scalability of Real Ice’s project remain uncertain, but early results have been encouraging, according to Ceccolini.
Before beginning work in Ikaluktutiak, Ceccolini said Real Ice presented its plans to the local community, co-designed the field tests with local partners, and secured the necessary permits through various Nunavut institutions. Ceccolini said his company also obtained a letter of support from the Ekaluktutiak Hunters and Trappers Organization, a community-based nonprofit Inuit organization with a presence in Ikaluktutiak. Mongabay reached out to the Ekaluktutiak Hunters and Trappers Organization, but did not receive a response by the time of publication.
From 2023 onward, the team at Real Ice worked alongside community members in Ikaluktutiak to drill holes through the sea ice and pump seawater onto the surface during winter so it refreezes into a thicker layer, according to Ceccolini.
So far, the treated ice has stayed thicker throughout the summer melt seasons during the past three years and has experienced less melting than untreated ice. It has also become more reflective, enhancing the “albedo effect,” the process through which bright surfaces reflect sunlight into space, helping to keep temperatures low.
In June, a reporting team from The Guardian traveled to Cambridge Bay to observe the results of Real Ice’s work. Ceccolini told Mongabay the contrast between the treated and untreated ice was immediately apparent during that visit.
“It was like walking in a blue ocean, first the melt pond on top of the existing ice, and then you get to our treated area,” Ceccolini said. “It was like a white island, not that you can actually step on top — thicker, bright, really wide.”
For now, work has been limited to a 1-square-kilometer (0.4-square-mile) test site, with thickening attempted on only about a quarter of that area. At the beginning of the 2026 melt season at the end of May, the sea ice was 50 centimeters (20 inches) thicker than the untreated sea ice, according to Ceccolini. Besides adding thickness, the treated ice was far more reflective than the surrounding natural ice, which helped slow its rate of melting.
If Real Ice’s approach proves viable and environmentally safe, the team hopes to scale it in the future, potentially using underwater drones to automate much of the process, Ceccolini said.
Thicker sea ice would provide multiple benefits to the local community, including the protection of hunting grounds and cultural traditions, and the ability to travel more safely on the ice, he added.
According to Ceccolini, the Real Ice project has yielded promising results so far. But, he said, the only thing that will save the Arctic is to address the drivers of climate change through decarbonization. His company’s work is only intended to “buy time,” he said, while the world reduces greenhouse gas emissions. Without meaningful climate action, the project’s methods would become “insufficient very soon,” he told Mongabay.
Kyle Weese, an Inuit guide working with Real Ice, is one of many community members who have spoken positively about the project to the media. “At first, the idea does sound crazy but it is not trying to hurt the environment, it’s actually trying to help it,” he told The Guardian. “It’s good to know how it’s changing so we can try to adapt with it and try to preserve it.”
But geoengineering projects in the Arctic, including those aimed at thickening sea ice, have drawn criticism. In 2025, a group of scientists published a review in the journal Frontiers in Science opposing geoengineering approaches in polar regions, arguing that such interventions were “environmentally dangerous” and “simply not feasible for use at a scale and at a rate that would be meaningful for sea ice protection.”
“Anything new has the potential for unintended consequences,” Shaun Fitzgerald, the director of the Centre for Climate Repair at the University of Cambridge in the U.K., who wasn’t involved in the review, told The Guardian. “I liken it to clinical trials: new drugs have the potential to really help people, but we have to go incredibly carefully and understand what the risks are.”
Ceccolini told Mongabay that Real Ice conducts its research openly and transparently so scientists and local communities can better understand both the benefits and the risks of its methods, including possible ecological impacts. He added that any impacts of the project need to be weighed against the consequences of continued ice loss, which could have far-reaching effects on both biodiversity and Arctic communities. Changing caribou migration patterns, for example, are already affecting communities that depend on hunting them, Ceccolini said.
Ultimately, Ceccolini said he hopes projects like Real Ice will, one day, no longer be necessary, and that the world will reduce greenhouse gas emissions to curb the warming trend.
