FAQs

We are on a mission to restore Arctic sea ice to counter global warming. We are committed to halting the rapid disappearance of Arctic sea ice, which serves as the world’s refrigerator by reflecting the sun’s heat into space through its white ice sheets.

We aim to restore and thicken the Arctic ice by pumping seawater on top of it in winter. When pumped over the ice, Arctic seawater freezes quickly due to the low Arctic atmosphere temperature. The pumping produces thicker ice sheets, less likely to melt completely during summer.

We will operate in strategically chosen locations to use existing ocean currents to effectively distribute the thickened ice, thereby ‘engineering with nature.’ 

Arctic sea ice plays a critical role in regulating global climate patterns by reflecting sunlight and maintaining cooler temperatures. Its disappearance would lead to increased absorption of solar radiation by the dark ocean water, contributing to global warming.

Furthermore, the Arctic’s role in the climate system includes feedback mechanisms that amplify climate change. For instance, melting permafrost could release stored methane, a potent greenhouse gas, into the atmosphere, exacerbating warming.

Our mission is to thicken 100,000 km² of ice every year, to counter the net yearly loss of summer sea ice, for the coming 20-50 years. 

The decrease in sea ice has averaged 80,000 km² per year in recent decades.

To effectively halt this decline, we have therefore set ourselves the goal of eventually thickening 100,000 km² of sea ice per year.

According to scientific calculations, flooding a 20 cm snow layer at the start of the winter, and thereby breaking its insulating properties, creates up to 70cm of natural ice growth at the bottom of the ice as a multiplier effect, which could prolong the sea ice cover in summer for up to two additional months. Thicker ice is expected to last longer during the following summer months and increase solar radiation reflection, thereby reducing warming. Our mission is to thicken 100,000 km² of ice every year, to counter the net yearly loss of summer sea ice, for the coming 20-50 years. 

The albedo of an object refers to how much sunlight it can reflect to space. White ice sheets have a greater albedo than the dark ocean.

An ice-free summer will create a self-reinforcing feedback loop as the ice sheets are not present to reflect the heat and energy of the sun (the Albedo effect). Instead, the dark ocean will absorb most of the heat, further accelerating the temperature increase of the Arctic Sea and the melting of the remaining ice.

The diminishing Albedo effect potentially has devastating consequences, such as further global warming, permafrost methane release, accelerated melting of the Greenland ice sheet, and increased extreme weather events across the globe. 

The cooling impact of maintaining the reflectivity of 1km2 of ice for an additional summer month is equivalent to 1kT of CO₂ when compared on a 20-year scale. Thickening 100,000 km2 by 30-75 cm has the impact equivalent to 100 MT CO2, or roughly the emissions of The Netherlands in 2030 when compared on a 20-year scale.

Halting the decline of the Arctic Sea ice also limits the decline of a delicate and unique ecosystem. Thickening ice has positive effects like enhancing algae & plankton life as cornerstones of the food web and preserving polar bear habitats.

No. We are an impact-driven enterprise that prioritizes our mission to restore the Arctic ice sheet above all else.

Accomplishing our mission will not be a walk in the park. To halt the decline of the sea ice we will need large investment. We believe that the best way to attract these funds is by founding a social, impact-driven enterprise. Investing in us should be just as attractive as investing in any other commercial company.

We strive to create environmental benefits for the planet while building a business model to attract investors.

We are a team of entrepreneurs and scientists with a shared belief that the disappearance of the Arctic sea ice should be halted and who are willing to act to do so. Please also have a look at our ‘Who we are‘ page. 

There are many ways that you can contribute to our organization. If you feel you have specific knowledge or skills which can help us in achieving our mission, please contact us at info@arcticreflections.earth

If you are representing an (impact) investor or philanthropical organization, please contact us at funding@arcticreflections.earth

Unfortunately, we are not equipped to handle your well-intended personal donations. However you can always help us by spreading the word about our initiative. 

We don’t regard our activities as geoengineering, which we would define as a large-scale intervention in the global climate system. Just like reforestation projects, our initiative can best be described as nature restoration, with of course the crucial difference that we operate in the Arctic Ocean.

We aim to stop the current decline of summer Arctic sea ice, which scientists attribute to human-induced climate change, driven by greenhouse gas emissions.  

We provide a localized solution that restores what has always been there and is projected to disappear completely in summer already as soon as the 2030s or 2040s: the Arctic ice sheet.

While the reason of founding Arctic Reflections is to protect the Arctic, any human activity, including ours, can pose a threat to the Arctic environment and its unique biodiversity.

Therefore, at every location, we will perform an ecological risk assessment and implement mitigating actions when and where needed.

Additionally, we will start with small field tests and carefully monitor for unwanted impact and any unforeseen risks.

Last but not least, we will collaborate with local Indigenous communities and incorporate their invaluable traditional ecological knowledge into our process. 

This is why we took multiple ice cores on a daily basis both on the thickened sites as on the reference site. Besides taking cores for salinity measurements, we also used ice cores for density and temperature measurements.

Thickening the ice is one thing. Validating that the thickened ice survives longer is the other important thing. At this moment, during the melting season, we are just doing that by remotely monitoring the ice via sensors installed in the ice and visually using a timelapse camera and satellite images.

Reduction of carbon emission is urgently needed: restoring Arctic ice cannot replace reduction of carbon emissions in any way.

Yet, even in the most optimistic carbon emissions reduction scenarios of the IPCC, the Arctic sea is predict to be completely ice free during the summer as soon as the 30s or 40s. This will cause even more warming and trigger a set of self reinforcing feedback loops.

We are researching the possibilities to stop the decline of the sea ice until carbon levels are back at acceptable levels.

Getting the water to release more heat to the atmosphere in winter to freeze ice is not necessarily bad. Also, a similar amount of heat will be absorbed again in the melting process of the additional ice in summer.

The amount of reflected solar energy is an order of magnitude higher than the latent energy involved, even when taking into account that the majority of the solar energy will already be reflected by cloud cover.

For the field test we used gasoline powered pumps that are normally used to create ice roads in Canada. We chose to use proven technology not to risk the main goal of the test: scientifically validating the impact. At the same time we are exploring which sustainable energy sources we can use going forward.

No. Lifecycle Analysis (LCA) indicates that even when powering with diesel, positive climate benefits are only diminished by 2,5% due to the CO₂ impact of diesel.

However, we strive for a sustainable supply chain and plan to use green methanol when operating at scale.

We are currently looking at larger pumps for our next demonstration project.

Yes, we will publish our results. Follow Arctic Reflections on LinkedIn to stay updated.

We are very much aware of the research in Canada, as we were part of it. Our CEO Fonger joined them and wrote this blog post about it: https://arcticreflections.earth/blog/first-field-trip-to-the-arctic/

We hope to be thickening 100km² of ice by 2030.

This is not a solution to climate change, it is a sticking plaster. 

While restoring Arctic ice cannot replace the urgently needed reduction of carbon emissions, it is a crucial measure to avert the devastating feedback loops that come with Arctic sea ice loss.

We must all drastically reduce carbon and greenhouse gas emissions to tackle climate change.

The field test at Svalbard achieved its goal of scientifically validating the impact of Arcttic ice thickening.

One of the things we are researching is what happens with the salt. Normally when sea ice forms the salt is released by the ice through brine channels (which are at the same time important for microbes). We want to know whether this same process takes place when thickening the ice and how long it takes.

Of course, if scientific validation is succesful and reason to continue and scale up, we will look for sustainable energy sources to power the operation, though even with fossil fuels the net effect would be very positive according to out calulations.

We are now continuing to monitor the thickened ice during the melting season and expect to be able to publish results this Summer.

While our initiative sounds as a moonshot initiative, we have actually already significantly derisked our initiative, through rigorous scientific validation with researchers from Delft University and UNIS (Svalbard), proving our impact potential at our Svalbard field test.

Next to this, the technology we use is already in use for decades to create ice roads, limiting technology risk. Furthermore, we are actively engaging stakeholders.

We have engaged with local Indigenous communities to co-create value and ensure local benefits. We have received our first permit to operate. Ongoing collaboration with prominent NGOs such as The Blue Cooling Initiative, Operaatio Arktis and Ocean Visions helps us to have a sounding board for decision making. Recently, we are collaborating with The University of Cambidge, Centre for Climate Repair (CCR). CCR is a global coordinating hub for international experts tackling both carbon capture and climate repair and this partnership gives us access to their network.