Real ICE’s Plan to Refreeze the Arctic

A mist of white ice crystals met the Arctic as snowmobiles arrived from Canada on a nippy February day. Sitting on these snowmobiles was Cían Sherwin, wearing his distinctive red beanie and coffee-colored jacket, and others from the Real Ice company.  After two years of testing and a recent threatening trend, the company is using distinctive geoengineering conventions to save the Arctic. The British company Real Ice intends to save not only these sheets of ice but also the white bears that come along with them. Real Ice drills into the ice and pumps seawater onto the surface. This water eventually refreezes, thickening the ice. Real Ice intends to deploy half a million pumps to the Arctic, refreezing an area the size of Texas. 

Polar ice sheets do more than just provide a home for polar bears: similar to a mirror, they reflect about 90% of the solar radiation, maintaining the global temperature. Even a small temperature increase threatens the surface area of arctic ice. Thus, the effects of climate change will only continue to escalate in the future. Moreover, Australian scientists anticipate that by 2050, all the polar ice caps will be completely melted. This phenomenon of “Arctic amplification” has significant consequences.  Warmer Arctic oceans and winds can redirect storm patterns and weather far to the south.

These efforts are not without critics. Many argue that we simply don't know the environmental effects of large-scale seawater pumping onto the surface. “We’re talking about changing the energy balance of the planet,” said Dr. Frank Keutsch, an atmospheric chemist at Harvard. “That’s not something to take lightly.” 

Jennifer Francis, a senior scientist at the Woodwell Climate Research Center, says she has serious doubts about whether refreezing the Arctic will make an impact. Moreover, prominent indigenous arctic residents say that they feel left out of geoengineering decisions and worry that large-scale projects could disrupt animals and the environment. The Saami Council, which represents Indigenous people in northern Europe, strongly opposed a planned test of stratospheric aerosol injection in Sweden, calling it a “moral hazard.” Their concern is that experiments like these might distract from what really needs to happen: reducing emissions. Environmental groups agree. Geoengineering organizations argue that focusing on high-tech fixes sends the wrong message. “Geoengineering is like putting a band-aid on a broken leg,” said one campaigner. “It delays the hard but necessary work of cutting fossil fuel use and transforming our economies.”

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Extemp Analysis by Sophia Amundgaard

It’s incredibly unlikely you’ll receive a hyper specific question on Real ICE or even the concept of Refreezing. Regardless, learning how to answer file buster questions is crucial, so let's look at the prompt:

Question: Can refreezing save the Arctic?

The nature of this question allows us to expand to the broader issue of climate change, at least in the intro. An even better reason to pick it is that we can use a lot of cookie cutter points to target the issue. This question is essentially just asking is X solution actually going to solve X problem?—there are always ‘solutions’ to climate change circulating that fail for similar reasons.

AGD: Climate change offers a lot of room for creative jokes. An immediately easy grab includes Florida passing a “Don’t Say Climate Change” bill—feel free to get super topic specific, but don't feel trapped by the specificity of the question. I recommend keeping this introduction short and sweet as explaining the nature of the question might require slightly more time.

Background: Here we need to establish a couple of critical points; what refreezing is, who’s implementing it, and why it matters—especially for the arctic. I would suggest almost overexplaining and/or slowing down when touching on the definition of refreezing because you don’t want to have to cover it again.

SOS: Lots of easy grabs for your significance. My mind immediately jumps to stats on polar bears or penguins or even the broader sentiment that as of 2024, we have surpassed 1.5º of warming.

Answer: Personally, I would immediately opt to answer no. When it comes to umbrella answers, you have a lot of choices, but most climate solution failures boil down to a lack of international support/recognition, high prices, a small scope, plain logistical failures (ex. How much carbon does it take to actually refreeze a meter in the arctic), or some combination of the above. Again don’t worry too much about being micro respondent to refreezing itself, especially if you know very little about the process. 

Points: Some strong example points include high costs, varied international usage, carbon footprint, and a limited timeline or duration. Using expectation verification substructure we can address our main points in three parts:

1. A problem that needs to be solved by refreezing

2. Refreezing’s ability to tackle that problem

3. Impact/why refreezing’s limited ability to solve this specific issue will tank its success

Reminders: Don’t get overly lost in the specificity of the question but also don’t forget we are focused on the arctic. Minimize repetition as it pertains to definitions like that of refreezing. I’d recommend doing some quick topical research as soon as you get the question (what is refreezing, why is it/is it not being used) for about 2 minutes to clear confusion and allow for maximum clarity during the rest of your prep. When you get really specific questions but a simpler substructure, it is crucial you take the time to understand the process you’re arguing for or against since structuring the points themselves will be rather simple.

Read More Here:

• Alec Luhn - Scientific American

• Richard Winsor - The Week

• Laura Paddison - CNN