ARIA: Exploring Climate Cooling - concept papers
Backed by £56.8m, this programme will explore whether approaches designed to delay, or avert, climate tipping points could be feasible, scalable, and safe.
Opportunity Details
When
Registration Opens
16/09/2024
Registration Closes
07/10/2024
Award
ARIA aim to be as flexible as possible with funding and to make additional funds available to successful projects. The total budget is £56.8m and up to 100% of costs can be covered; there is no match funding requirement.
Organisation
ARIA
This solicitation seeks R&D Creators – individuals and teams that ARIA will fund – to answer the most critical technical and fundamental questions on the practicality, measurability, controllability, and likely side-effects of approaches that might one day be used to actively cool the Earth.
In tandem, ARIA expect to support projects in the social sciences that are of direct relevance to approaches for actively cooling the Earth (including, but by no means limited to, consideration of public perception, potential legal, ethical, regulatory and governance frameworks, ethics, community engagement, and the economic or broader societal impact of those approaches).
Why this programme
Climate change could cause global temperatures to increase by several degrees by the end of the century. There is a real risk that heating already locked-in to the planet could precipitate climate tipping points with serious and irreversible consequences around the world.
While the only sustainable way to reduce the risk of such tipping events is through decarbonisation, the risk of crossing one or more in the near future has driven increased interest in approaches to actively reduce global temperatures in the shorter term.
Yet, there is a dearth of robust data on these approaches, and we have a limited understanding of whether such interventions are scientifically sound, how they might be steered, or the full extent of their potential impacts.
Aims of the programme
Following a twelve-month engagement process, this programme will begin to explore whether approaches designed to delay, or avert, climate tipping points could be feasible, scalable, and safe.
ARIA’s goal is to gather critical missing data and answer fundamental scientific questions on approaches that could help prevent humanity from experiencing climate tipping points.
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ARIA welcome applications from across the R&D ecosystem, including individuals, universities, research institutions, small, medium and large companies, charities and public sector research organisations. ARIA can award funding to applicants who are based outside of the UK and/or whose projects will primarily take place outside of the UK for this Programme, provided these projects boost the net impact of the programme. Collaborations between UK and non-UK researchers are encouraged.
ARIA have also launched a teaming tool to help potential Creators form teams to collaborate and produce a proposal together. Details are at the link below.
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There will be a single call for proposals, with applicants able to request funding for durations ranging from a few weeks to five years. ARIA aim to be as flexible as possible with funding and to make additional funds available to successful projects. The total budget is £56.8m and up to 100% of costs can be covered; there is no match funding requirement.
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In order to be in-scope for this programme, projects will need to demonstrate how the research they are proposing meets at least one of the following criteria:
1. The approaches being researched have the potential to alter the earth’s surface temperature (at any scale) by affecting at least one of the variables ɑ (planetary albedo), ε (atmospheric emissivity) or S (solar radiation) in a manner that is statistically distinguishable from the background
2. The approaches being researched have the potential to alter parameters that map directly onto the variables ɑ, ε or S (applicants will be required to justify explicitly how the parameters being perturbed map onto ɑ, ε or S) in a manner that is statistically distinguishable from the background
3. The research proposed has direct bearing on the prediction, modelling, measurement, monitoring, validation, governance, education, public perception, ethics or other research questions related to approaches or experiments that could alter at least one of the variables ɑ, ε or S (or parameters that map directly onto those variables)
4. The research proposed has direct bearing on open questions or uncertainties about the ecological or other environmental impacts, risks or side-effects related to approaches or experiments that could alter at least one of the variables ɑ, ε or S (or parameters that map directly onto those variables).
Possible approaches include: marine cloud brightening or ice sheet thickening (changing planetary albedo), space-based reflectors (changing the solar constant), or cirrus cloud thinning (changing atmospheric emissivity). This list is not exhaustive. (CO2 removal/sequestration/use is out of scope as multiple other funders are already investigating this.) See ARIA’s website for a full scope and exclusions.
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For further information, visit ARIA’s website at the link below to watch a video presentation, read the call for proposals, and find collaborators.