The Exploring Climate Cooling Programme is a

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies. * British national identity, the characteristics of British people and culture ...

scientific initiative focused on researching

climate engineering Geoengineering (also known as climate engineering or climate intervention) is the deliberate large-scale interventions in the Earth’s climate system intended to counteract human-caused climate change. The term commonly encompasses two broad cate ...

technologies designed to mitigate global warming effects. The programme's primary objective involves investigating various methodologies for reducing Earth's surface temperature by limiting

solar radiation Sunlight is the portion of the electromagnetic radiation which is emitted by the Sun (i.e. solar radiation) and received by the Earth, in particular the visible light perceptible to the human eye as well as invisible infrared (typically p ...

to possibly slow climate change progression. by April 2025, the

Advanced Research and Invention Agency The Advanced Research and Invention Agency, or ARIA, is a research funding agency of the UK government, announced on 19 February 2021 and formally established on 26 January 2023. History The Advanced Research and Invention Agency Act 2022 cre ...

(ARIA) and National Environment Research Council provided a total of £61 million in government funding to the climate engineering programme across multiple research projects.

Initiative

Exploring Climate Cooling Programme director Professor Mark Symes expressed the opinion that the mounting risk of climate tipping points— such as the potential collapse of the

Atlantic meridional overturning circulation The Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) is the main ocean current system in the Atlantic Ocean.IPCC, 2021Annex VII: Glossary

empirical data Empirical evidence is evidence obtained through sense experience or experimental procedure. It is of central importance to the sciences and plays a role in various other fields, like epistemology and law. There is no general agreement on how the ...

from real-world physical experiments regarding climate change mitigation efforts, which Simulation, laboratory simulations and Computer simulation, computer models alone cannot provide. In late 2024, the

(ARIA) allocated £50 million toward a comprehensive research initiative that includes small-scale outdoor experiments. Complementing this effort, the National Environment Research Council (NERC) committed an additional £11 million on April 3, 2025, to investigate potential impacts of

solar geoengineering Solar radiation modification (SRM) (or solar geoengineering) is a group of large-scale approaches to reduce global warming by increasing the amount of sunlight that is reflected away from Earth and back to Outer space, space. It is not intended ...

interventions. The dual funding resulted in the United Kingdom becoming among the largest funders of climate engineering science, at a time when

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

contributions were predicted to decrease under the second

Donald Trump Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who is the 47th president of the United States. A member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party, he served as the 45 ...

presidential administration. The programme intended to test multiple approaches to solar radiation management (SRM). These include

stratospheric aerosol injection Solar radiation reduction due to volcanic eruptions, considered the best analogue for stratospheric aerosol injection. Stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI) is a proposed method of solar geoengineering (or solar radiation modification) to reduc ...

, which involves introducing reflective particles into the upper atmosphere to bounce sunlight back into space;

marine cloud brightening Marine cloud brightening (MCB), also known as marine cloud seeding or marine cloud engineering, may be a way to make stratocumulus clouds over the sea brighter, thus reflecting more sunlight back into space in order to limit global warming. It i ...

, involving spraying

seawater Seawater, or sea water, is water from a sea or ocean. On average, seawater in the world's oceans has a salinity of about 3.5% (35 g/L, 35 ppt, 600 mM). This means that every kilogram (roughly one liter by volume) of seawater has approximat ...

to enhance cloud reflectivity; and cirrus cloud thinning, involving seeding

ice nuclei An ice nucleus, also known as an ice nucleating particle (INP), is a particle which acts as the nucleus for the formation of an ice crystal in the atmosphere. Ice nucleation mechanisms There are a number of mechanisms of ice nucleation in the atm ...

into cirrus clouds to reduce their duration. The programme offered several measures to mitigate potential harm caused by the experiments, such as prohibition the release of toxic substances, publishing comprehensive environmental impact assessments prior to experiments, and consultation with community representatives in regions impacted by the experiments. Programme researchers expressed hope that the tested measures could be increased in scale in ten years, should the experiments show signs of success.

Controversy

Critics, including several prominent climate researchers, characterized the solar radiation management experiments to be conducted by the programme as an ill-conceived approach that diverts attention from the essential task of reducing

carbon emissions Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from human activities intensify the greenhouse effect. This contributes to climate change. Carbon dioxide (), from burning fossil fuels such as coal, petroleum, oil, and natural gas, is the main cause of climate chan ...

. Senior researchers Michael Mann and Raymond Pierrehumbert characterized the efforts as a "dangerous distraction" from underlying sources of climate change, and akin to "taking

aspirin Aspirin () is the genericized trademark for acetylsalicylic acid (ASA), a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) used to reduce pain, fever, and inflammation, and as an antithrombotic. Specific inflammatory conditions that aspirin is ...

for

cancer Cancer is a group of diseases involving Cell growth#Disorders, abnormal cell growth with the potential to Invasion (cancer), invade or Metastasis, spread to other parts of the body. These contrast with benign tumors, which do not spread. Po ...

External links

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Exploring Climate Cooling
main page

References

Science policy in the United Kingdom 2024 establishments in the United Kingdom Advanced Research and Invention Agency Innovation in the United Kingdom Research and development in the United Kingdom Geoengineering Climate change policy Climate change Planetary engineering {{Climate change

Initiative

Controversy

See also

External links

References