Melting ice: geoengineering seeks solutions

In practical terms, the Reflect project, run by the Universities of Cambridge and Manchester, aims to equip specialised ships to spray a very fine mist – consisting of microscopic particles of evaporated seawater – into the atmosphere above the ocean. The tiny salt crystals suspended in the mist act as ‘condensation nuclei’ and make marine clouds much denser, whiter and more reflective than usual, lowering the local ocean temperature and protecting the sea ice from melting in summer.

The British agency Aria (Advanced Research and Invention Agency) has allocated a massive public funding package, under which Real Ice’s Rasi project has received a record sum of 13 million dollars over the next three years; however, to cover large areas of the Arctic, fleets of ships, millions of water pumps and logistics costing an estimated tens of billions of dollars a year. Such expenditure could only be borne by government agencies or international coalitions.

This gives rise to a geopolitical paradox: superpowers such as China, Russia and, to some extent, the United States welcome the summer thaw, which opens up new trade routes and facilitates access to vast underwater gas and oil reserves. For some governments, funding the refreezing of the Arctic would mean stifling their own economic interests.

At the heart of this vast climate chessboard lie the true custodians of the Arctic: the indigenous Inuit communities, for whom ice is not merely frozen water, but a highway, a territory and a vital food source. The reactions of the indigenous peoples to these interventions carried out by Western scientists and companies reflect a profound ethical complexity.

On the one hand, in areas such as Cambridge Bay, many residents welcome experiments such as the Real Ice project. Local hunters and guides, who face the thinning of the sea ice and the instability of caribou and seal migration routes on a daily basis, argue that artificially thickening the ice near the coast could safeguard their age-old traditions by securing their winter routes.

On the other hand, however, the Inuit Circumpolar Council and various local leaders have expressed strong reservations about invasive solar geoengineering projects, such as cloud brightening.

The international scientific community, too, remains deeply divided. A recent study published in the journal *Frontiers in Science*, involving over 40 glaciologists and polar experts (including the Italian Florence Colleoni of the OGs), has expressed serious concerns about large-scale geoengineering. The main criticisms relate to logistics and undesirable side effects. Powering millions of pumps in the Arctic would require enormous amounts of energy: whilst there are future plans to convert the machinery to green hydrogen or wind power, if diesel fuel were used initially, the operation would create an ecological paradox.

@elencomelli