Could artificial refreezing help save polar ice?

Ambitious geo-engineering schemes hope artificial snow and ice could help keep the poles cold.

As sea and land ice declines in the Arctic and Antarctic, some scientists have begun proposing geo-engineering efforts to re-freeze or stabilize some of that ice.

In Antarctica, scientists drawing on Arctic research said in a study last month that covering the West Antarctic Ice Sheet in artificial snow could help save it.

Similar plans have been proposed to spray seawater onto Arctic sea ice in hopes that it would re-freeze — and slow down the melting of that ice.

Meanwhile Greenland’s ice sheet, whose future also depends on snowfall, was poised to see record melting as the heat wave that broke European records last month moved into the Arctic.