‘At first, the idea does sound crazy’: meet the scientists trying to refreeze the Arctic

Sea ice is melting fast, worsening the climate crisis, but a bold attempt to rethicken it is showing early signs of success

This would have been a wild dream a year ago," says Andrea Ceccolini, standing on Arctic sea ice just a 4-mile snowmobile ride from the Inuit town of Cambridge Bay, northern Canada. To his left are sky blue ponds of meltwater created in the last few days by a sun that no longer sets in the high north summer. To his right, the sea ice is still a brilliant white, the light dusting of snow on top continuing to sparkle.

It's incredibly different, the boundary - I mean, you can point to it," he says. The difference is the result of a bold geoengineering experiment being conducted by Ceccolini's company, Real Ice, funded by the UK government.