On the ice: updates from Arctic research

The Real Ice team has arrived in Cambridge Bay, Nunavut, to begin their 2026 research season.

"As we return to Cambridge Bay for a third year to commence further research field experiments, we are delighted to be building on the strong relationships we’ve established with the community," says Shaun Fitzgerald, project lead. "This research couldn’t happen without their support. From advising on where experiments might be conducted, and how they can be done safely, to now providing on-the-ground, day-to-day guidance for working on the ice - their input and local knowledge will continue to be invaluable.

"This year we have more equipment for environmental sampling and measurements of temperature and salinity. I am looking forward to analysing this new data, learning more about the process of freezing seawater on top of existing sea ice, and using our findings to help determine whether such an approach might be helpful to rethicken Arctic Sea Ice and prolong its life over the Arctic summer."

LinkedIn post by Andrea Ceccolini. Reads: After 2 days of preparation in the lab at CHARS, where we collected, cleaned and assembled all the necessary tools, we finally set up the camp, out at sea, in a designated area 7 km from Cambridge Bay, in collaboration with the local community. Here, for the next 6 months we will thicken up the sea ice, take a large number of measurements and observe the evolution until full melt in the summer.

"The Arctic is warming much faster than the global average, driving sea ice loss that threatens local ecosystems and accelerates global climate change.

While the only sustainable, long-term way to slow Arctic warming is through emissions reductions, the speed of Arctic warming has led to suggestions that deliberately thickening sea ice during winter might help to slow the melting and the rate of sea ice loss.

By bridging the gap between theoretical models, laboratory studies and real-world data collected through small-scale outdoor experiments, this project will investigate whether this approach could ever be feasible, scalable, and ecologically sound."

-- The Rethickening Arctic Sea Ice project, supported by the Advanced Research + Invention Agency (ARIA)