Ice Watch comes 15 years after Eliasson's previous Tate installation The Weather Project which created a glowing sun in the Tate Modern's Turbine Hall. The project remains one of the museum's most popular installations of all time.

Eliasson hopes this latest project – which follows a similar installation by the Place de Panthéon in Paris in 2015 – can have a similar impact.

\"I'm not naive I understand that this one project probably will not suddenly tilt something major around but I do honestly believe that I am part of a movement\" he said.

\"I think it matters for people to actually put their ear to the ice and suddenly realise that is has a very subtle cracking hopping crisp noise because the melting releases pressure bubbles that have been stuck in the ice for 10000 years\" he said.

\"Ten thousand years ago there was 30 per cent less carbon dioxide in the atmosphere so the smell of the ice blocks should be the smell of the air from 10000 years ago.\"