Harvard physicist suggests we could inject reflective particles into the atmosphere to reflect back to light and heat from the Sun

We could refreeze the Arctic, and it wouldn't even cost that much, scientists have claimed.

Two recently published studies explore the possibility that a technological solution could be found to the problem of global warming melting the ice caps on the North Pole.

The scientist who is lead author on both claims that 'any significant nation' could find the resources to carry out the operation.

The only significant question, he says, is whether we should.

The amount of ice in the Arctic Ocean shrank to an all time low in September, with the total area covered now half what it was in the Eighties.

David Keith, professor of applied physics at Harvard University, is lead author on papers published in Nature Climate Change and Environmental Research Letters which speculate as to how we could restore the polar ice.


'The really hard questions here aren’t mostly technical. They’re questions about what kind of planet we want and who we are,' he told Canadian newspaper The Windsor Star.

Professor Keith used climate models to suggest that injecting reflective particles into the atmosphere could reduce the amount of sunlight reaching the Earth, engineering a regional effect that could bring ice back to the Arctic.

His paper claims that by reducing the penetration of sunlight by just 0.5 per cent is could be possible to restore the sea-ice around the North Pole back to pre-industrial era levels.


'Decisions involving (solar radiation management) do not need to be reduced to a single "global thermostat",' the paper says.

His second paper suggests the whole operation could be accomplished with just a few modified Gulfstream jets, costing somewhere in the region of $8billion a year.

However, while he believes action must be taken to tackle the amount of pollution spewed into the Earth's atmosphere, he doesn't yet advocate the kind of action his papers suggest.


Open-air and large-scale geoengineering of the kind Professor Keith has suggested has been ruled out by the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity.

Such drastic geoengineering could have disastrous unintended effects but could be a viable response to a 'climate emergency' such as the sudden collapse of ice sheets or a killing drought, Professor Keith suggested.
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