Weekly Solar Geoengineering Updates (12 May - 18 May 2025)
Your weekly roundup of SRM updates from past week
1. This Week’s Top SRM Highlights
2. Research Papers
3. Web Posts
4. Job Opportunities
5. Upcoming Events
6. Podcasts
7. YouTube Videos
RESEARCH PAPER: How marine cloud brightening could also affect stratospheric ozone (Science Advances)
RESEARCH PAPER: A Model Study Exploring the Decision Loop Between Unilateral Stratospheric Aerosol Injection Scenario Design and Earth System Simulations (AGU)
CORRESPONDENCE: Make Sunsets submits response to EPA’s information request (Make Sunsets)
RESOURCE: SRM Funding Overview (SRM360)
RESPONSE: Informed voices, informed futures: African scientists respond to misrepresentations of solar geoengineering research (The Degrees Initiative)
UPCOMING EVENT: Introducing SRM: Current Knowledge and Future Challenges | 06 June, Online (Co-Create)
VIDEO: 2.5ºC–3ºC Is Not Viable: Dr. Mike MacCracken's Case for Solar Radiation Management (Nick Breeze ClimateGenn)
Read on to unpack more updates:
Authors: Katalin Sulyok
Synopsis: This article explores how customary international law, particularly the principle of prevention, could limit state actions on Solar Radiation Management (SRM). It challenges the assumption that no legal barriers exist, outlining how different interpretations of prevention may constrain SRM development—even before harm occurs—and presents three legal scenarios with implications for future SRM treaties.
How marine cloud brightening could also affect stratospheric ozone
Authors: Ewa M. Bednarz, James M. Haywood, Daniele Visioni, Amy H. Butler, and Andy Jones
Synopsis: Marine cloud brightening, a proposed climate intervention, was thought to only affect the troposphere. This study shows MCB can also significantly impact stratospheric and tropospheric ozone, revealing strong coupling between atmospheric layers. It highlights the need to evaluate climate interventions holistically—considering effects on the entire Earth system, not just surface climate.
The Impact of Stratospheric Aerosol Injection: A Regional Case Study
Authors: Sabrina Cohen, James W. Hurrell, Danica L Lombardozzi
Synopsis: This study uses an Earth system model to compare climate and crop impacts of climate change vs. three stratospheric aerosol injection scenarios in four vulnerable Global South regions. SAI reduces temperature extremes and boosts wet season rainfall, soil moisture, and crop yields—especially in South Central America and West Africa. Findings highlight the need for more regional SAI impact assessments.
Authors: Chenrui Diao, Patrick W. Keys, Curtis M. Bell, Elizabeth A. Barnes, James W. Hurrell
Synopsis: This study develops a framework to explore unilateral SAI, a rarely modeled but geopolitically plausible climate intervention. Using game theory and the Community Earth System Model, it simulates unilateral SAI initiation and reactions, linking geopolitical dynamics with climate outcomes. The work shows how scenario design, modeling, and policy analysis can be integrated to assess complex feedbacks in unilateral SAI deployment.
Authors: Federica Catonini, Johanna Sophie Buerkert, Kristian Søby Kristensen
Synopsis: This paper reviews academic discourse on Arctic geoengineering using an Environment-People-Security lens. It finds a heavy focus on technology and feasibility, with limited governance research. The authors call for more interdisciplinary, inclusive approaches to guide future research and deployment.
Earth's Energy Imbalance More Than Doubled in Recent Decades
Authors: Thorsten Mauritsen, Yoko Tsushima, Benoit Meyssignac et al.
Synopsis: Global warming is caused by the imbalance between the incoming radiation from the Sun and the reflected and outgoing infrared radiation from the Earth. The imbalance leads to energy accumulation in the atmosphere, oceans and land, and melting of the cryosphere, resulting in increasing temperatures, rising sea levels, and more extreme weather around the globe according the the United Nations IPCC. Observations from space of the energy imbalance shows that it is rising much faster than expected, and in 2023 it reached values two times higher than the best estimate from IPCC.
A new cloud computing platform for the sunlight reflection research community (Reflective)
SRM Funding Overview (SRM360)
Arctic ice is vanishing – our bold experiment is trying to protect it (The Conversation)
SilverLining’s Geoengineering Techno-Optimism Is Distracting From Real Climate Solutions (Clean Technica)
Rich nations reap most funding for geoengineering research (E&E News)
The Risk-Impact Paradox of Global Cooling (Inevitable & Obvious)
Why a Global “Moratorium” on Solar Radiation Management Deployment Should Get a Chilly Reception (Just Security)
We Should Know Who's Paying for Geoengineering Experiments (Bloomberg)
Global warming can now be reversed by shade from moon dust placed in space (Astrocool)
State-Level Geoengineering Bans: Florida, Montana, and Beyond (Duan Morris Government Strategies)
Can we fix global warming by cooling the planet? (Science Norway)
Make Sunsets submits response to EPA’s information request (Make Sunsets)
Geoengineering Firm Hopes To Help EPA Write ‘Regulatory Framework’ (Inside EPA)
Can brightening clouds cool the planet? Manchester-led project to explore innovative solution to avert climate tipping points (University of Manchester)
"Applications are invited for a 36 month post-doctoral research associate position funded through the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) and the Advanced Research + Innovation Agency (subject to contract negotiations), in the atmospheric chemistry-climate modelling research groups of Prof Alex Archibald, Prof. Chiara Giorio and Dr Alison Ming. The successful applicant will work across two projects to broadly investigate the environmental impacts of SAI for solar radiation management (SRM). These projects include: ECLIPSE ¿ Evalutation of Climate Intervention through novel Potential StratEgies (led by the Dr Shaun Fitzgerald, Director of the Centre for Climate Repair at the University of Cambridge) and Natural Materials for Stratospheric Aerosol Injection (SAIM) project (led by Prof. Hugh Hunt, Deputy Director of the Centre for Climate Repair at the University of Cambridge)."
19-20 May | Switzerland - Consultative Workshop and Science-Policy Dialogue on Solar Radiation Modification by UNEP
31 May | London, UK - SoTA Weather Control & Geo-engineering Hackathon by Matvey Boguslavskiy & Jamie
06 June | Online - Introducing SRM: Current Knowledge and Future Challenges by Co-Create
10 June | Online - Can We Afford to Ignore Solar Geoengineering? by The Transition Accelerator
17 June | Germany - ACtIon4Cooling & STATISTICS workshop on Solar Radiation Modification
26-28 June | Cambridge UK - Artic Repair Conference 2025 by University of Cambridge & Center for Climate Repair
04-05 September | Washington DC - 2025 RFF and Harvard SRM Social Science Research Workshop: Governance in a Fractured World
3-7 November | Pune, India - 11th WMO Scientific Conference on Weather Modification
Is it time to try geoengineering? | Science Weekly
"Geoengineering, the controversial set of techniques that aim to deliberately alter the Earth’s climate system, may be inching a step closer to reality with the announcement that UK scientists will be conducting real-world experiments in the coming years. To understand what’s happening, Ian Sample is joined by the Guardian environment editor Damian Carrington. Damian explains what the experiments will entail and why scientists are so divided on whether pursuing this research is a good idea."
Polar Geoengineering Experiments Bet Big on Freezing Arctic Ice | Science Quickly
"The year-round sea ice in the Arctic is melting and has shrunk by nearly 40 percent over the past four decades. Geoengineering companies such as Real Ice are betting big on refreezing it. That may sound ridiculous, impractical or risky—but proponents say we have to try. The U.K. government seems to agree, investing millions into experimental approaches such as Real Ice’s. Pulitzer Center Ocean Reporting Fellow Alec Luhn is taking us with him to the Arctic to see what it takes to freeze sea ice in the already freezing cold."
Geoengineer Once, Measure Twice | Wicked Problems
"In this podcast, Kelly Wanser of SilverLining warns that geoengineering without proper atmospheric monitoring is dangerous. She highlights the decline in global measurement efforts, urging renewed commitment to scientific observation before deploying climate interventions."
Solar Radiation Management Annual Meeting (2025)—Playlist | Simons Foundation
"This Simons Collaboration on Solar Radiation Management seeks to communicate research process, progress and findings of the Simons-funded work on understanding the fundamental processes, uncertainties and potential impacts of strategies for solar radiation management."
Papers covered in this meeting:
Rajan Chakrabarty: Visible light absorption by alumina aerosols
Manas Mohanty: Sulfur chemistry and aerosol-cloud interactions
Jonathan P. D. Abbatt: Ice nucleation properties of aerosol particles
Frank Keutsch: Evolution of alternative stratospheric aerosol injection materials
Timofei Sukhodolov: Solid particles for stratospheric solar geoengineering
Thomas Preston: Using single particle measurements of aerosols to evaluate candidate materials for SRM
Simone Tilmes: Solid material integration into the CARMA box model and CESM2/CARMA
Romaric C. Odoulami: Africa’s climate response to SAI materials
Robert Wood: Modeling atmospheric turbulence and its impacts on plume dispersion for SAI
Miranda Hack (V Faye McNeill Group): Practical considerations for risk assessment of SAI strategies
Jasper Kok: Progress in understanding the potential for cooling the poles by seeding winter time mixed phase clouds
Gabriel Vecchi: Exploring the impacts of absorbing and scattering SAI with planatery cooling
Diego Villanueva: The glaciogenic effect of aerosols and its potential for mixed phase cloud thinning
Beiping Luo: Stratospheric aerosol injection across scales (SAIaS)
"In this ClinateGenn episode I am speaking with Dr Mike MacCracken, a pioneering climate scientist whose research on atmospheric physics and global climate change has significantly advanced our understanding of human impacts on the climate system. His leadership roles at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and the US Global Change Research Program established him as a key figure in climate science. As chief scientist for the Office of the US Global Change Research Program, he played a crucial role in advising multiple US administrations on climate science and policy.
In this episode we explore counter and cross-over views to opposition to solar geoengineering. With great respect to experts on all sides of this discussion– Mike offers some compelling reasons as to why we cannot just denounce proposals to cool the planet.
This is at a time when the UK government is significantly funding research into solar geoengineering. With such a split in views on this topic, I hope you take the time to consider what Mike says, and also what Professor Raymond Pierrehumbert says in a previous episode, in order to inform your own perspective."
Dimming the Sun?! - STWF Bad Ideas ep 9 ft Cynthia Scharf | WePlanet
'"In this urgent and wide-ranging episode, Mark Lynas is joined by Cynthia Scharf, senior fellow at the Center for Future Generations and former UN climate advisor, to unpack one of the most controversial climate topics: solar geoengineering.
Cynthia explains what solar radiation modification (SRM) is, how it could theoretically cool the planet by mimicking volcanic eruptions, and why even discussing it remains taboo. She argues that ignoring SRM may pose greater risks than researching it — especially as global temperatures surge and climate impacts escalate. They discuss the science, the politics, the ethics, and the terrifying prospect of a lone actor dimming the sun without global consent.
This is a deeply informed, emotionally honest conversation about a technology born of desperation — and the governance void we urgently need to address."
"Solar radiation modification is a controversial technology that could be used to temporarily cool the planet. But its use may carry unpredictable consequences for global weather patterns and raises pressing questions: If and how should it ever be deployed? And who should decide how it’s governed? In this video, we take a closer look at how SRM works and hear perspectives from across the international community. Narrated by Virginia Mahieu, interviews conducted by Serra Incekara."
SRM and Africa – Perspectives From the Continent | SRM360
"Africa is home to many of the world’s least developed nations and its population is rapidly growing, making it one of the most climate vulnerable regions in the world. As such, Africa has much to gain, or lose, from the potential deployment of SRM."
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