Weekly Solar Geoengineering Updates (23 February - 01 March 2026)
Weekly SRM roundup of research papers, web posts, events, jobs, projects, podcasts, videos and much more.
1. This Week’s Top SRM Highlights
2. Research Papers
3. Thesis
4. Web Posts
5. Projects
6. Job Opportunities
7. Upcoming Events
8. YouTube Videos
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Research Paper: The effect of particle shape on shortwave radiative forcing in stratospheric aerosol injection (ScienceDirect)
Thesis: Atmospheric Intra-vention : Reimagining Solar Geoengineering Through Feminist New Materialism (University of Helsinki)
News Report: Geoengineering gets a road map (E&E News by Politico)
Opinion Piece: Geoengineering is no longer a useful term (The ARC: Thoughts on a safe climate future)
Analysis Article: Penguins Are Solar Geoengineers (Governance Cybernetics)
Funding Announcement: EDF grantees study past data to understand potential SRM impacts (Environmental Defense Fund)
Job Opportunity: Programme Officer – Latin America and the Caribbean (The Degrees Initiative)
Upcoming Event: Securing the Stratosphere: Solar Geoengineering Technology in the Post Liberal World Order (King’s College London)
Event Recording: Sunlight Reflection: The Business Case for an Albedo Accord - MEERTalk with Robert Tulip (MEER SRM)
Read on to unpack more updates:
Authors: Rhoda Fiyinfoluwa Ayedun, Babatunde J Abiodun and Lili Xia
Synopsis: This study assesses how climate change and Stratospheric Aerosol Injection (SAI) affect African agriculture under SSP2-4.5. Using DSSAT-CSM, results show warming reduces maize and millet yields widely, with mixed effects for sorghum. SAI limits temperature rise and partly offsets yield and economic losses - especially in West Africa - though rainfall shifts create regional disparities. SAI reduces risks but cannot replace emissions cuts or adaptation efforts.
Authors: Andrew Feder, David Randall, Donald Dazlich
Synopsis: This study uses a high-resolution (30 km) GCM to directly simulate tropical cyclones (TCs) under late-century SSP5–8.5 warming, with and without Stratospheric Aerosol Injection (SAI). Comparing a historical baseline, high-emissions future, and SAI-stabilized (1.5 K) scenario, results show SAI can restore global storm counts to late 20th-century levels. However, significant basin-level shifts in TC frequency and intensity persist, likely linked to ENSO changes under both warming and intervention.
The effect of particle shape on shortwave radiative forcing in stratospheric aerosol injection
Authors: Benjamin Vennes, Thomas C. Preston
Synopsis: This study evaluates whether non-spherical particles could improve the effectiveness of SAI in increasing Earth’s Bond albedo. Using a new analytical Legendre-moment method within a T-matrix framework, the authors assess how particle shape and aspect ratio affect isotropic upscatter, ΔA, and radiative forcing for candidate materials. Results show morphology has only minor influence; albedo change is driven mainly by particle size and refractive index.
Atmospheric Intra-vention : Reimagining Solar Geoengineering Through Feminist New Materialism
Author: Pokela, Anni
Synopsis: This thesis reinterprets feminist engagement with SAI through Karen Barad’s agential realism and Donna Haraway’s speculative feminism. It critiques prior feminist rejections of geoengineering, identifying limits related to technological determinism, human–nature dualism, and scale. Reframing SAI as atmospheric “intra-action,” it proposes “climate intra-vention” as a framework for ethical, response-able participation in planetary climate processes.
Inevitable & Obvious – The Immune Response
MEER – The coming age of climate control: AI, aerosols, cloud seeding, and the dangerous vacuum of global governance
SRM360 – Could a Focus on Clouds Help Repair the Arctic?
E&E News by Politico – Geoengineering gets a road map
Geoengineering Monitor – Geoengineering the stratosphere: Funding for high-altitude geoengineering research is increasing massively
The ARC: Thoughts on a safe climate future – Geoengineering is no longer a useful term
GAO – Weather Modification: NOAA Should Strengthen Oversight to Ensure Reliable Information
Anthropocene – Less air pollution means more warming. Could marine cloud brightening offset the paradox?
E&E News by Politico – NOAA must ramp up oversight of weather modification, GAO says
The Economic Times – How a Volcano Can Cool the Entire Planet
Governance Cybernetics – Penguins Are Solar Geoengineers
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists – Solar geoengineering doesn’t solve the human problem
ScienceX – Could – and should – we thin clouds to cool the planet?
LinkedIn – Solar radiation modification: non-proliferation or climate action?
CFG – Call for evidence for the EU’s Strategic Foresight Report 2026
Climate Mitigation, Adaptation, and Intervention
Torbay Today – Exeter students debate climate change at Model UN conference
Environmental Defense Fund - EDF grantees study past data to understand potential SRM impacts
“The Degrees Initiative is a UK-based NGO that strengthens the capacity of the Global South to evaluate solar radiation modification (SRM), a controversial proposal for reducing some impacts of climate change by reflecting sunlight away from the Earth.”
Department Assistant at Climate Systems Engineering Administration
“The Climate Systems Engineering initiative (CSEi) is a new university-wide research effort seeded in the Physical Sciences Division (PSD) and part of a larger climate and energy focus at the University of Chicago, anchored in the Institute for Climate and Sustainable Growth (the Institute). CSEi addresses the science, engineering, and policy of new technologies to reduce or reverse the harms from accumulated greenhouse gasses, including open-systems carbon removal, solar geoengineering, and local interventions to slow the melting of glaciers.”
04 March | Oxford University - The unknowability of solar geoengineering and why it matters by OCRN Annual Lecture
9-13 March 2026 | Kyoto, Japan - CMIP Community Workshop (CMIP26)
11 March | London - Securing the Stratosphere: Solar Geoengineering Technology in the Post Liberal World Order by King’s College London (NEW)
12 March | Online - Climate Intervention Virtual Symposia#24 (NEW)
17-19 March | Tokyo, Japan - Sixteenth GeoMIP 2026 Meeting by Alan Robock and Daniele Visioni
18 March | University of Cambridge - Climate Repair: Hope or Hype? by Centre for Climate Repair
25 March | Online - Deliberately Cooling the Planet. Could we? Should we? Would we? by RMetS
03-08 May | Vienna, Austria & Online - EGU26
13-15 May | University of Nottingham - IAA Planetary Sunshade Workshop by Planetary Sunshade Foundation
18 May | University of Chicago - Frontiers in Climate Systems Engineering by CSEi (NEW)
28 – 29 May | Belgium - International Forum on Solar Radiation Modification Research Governance by Co-Create
02-04 June | Rwanda - The IAF Global Space Conference on Climate Change 2026 - Uniting Space and Earth for Climate Resilience
20-21 June | United States - Bridging the Knowledge Gaps in Climate Engineering with Experiments, Models, and Observations by Gordon Research Seminar
21-26 June 2026 | United States - Gordon Research Conference - Bridging Observations, Models, and Impacts in Solar Radiation Modification Research
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Sunlight Reflection: The Business Case for an Albedo Accord - MEERTalk with Robert Tulip | MEER SRM
“This talk will explore governance of sunlight reflection methods through an international Albedo Accord which can begin to restore the 2% of planetary brightness that has been lost this century, in recognition that darkening is now the primary driver of heat. The Albedo Accord can be modelled on the success of the Montreal Protocol on the ozone layer, through partnership between business, science and government, enabling an evidence-based balance between action on albedo and on carbon to reverse global warming.”
Albedo Feedbacks Dominate Current and Future Warming to ≥ 6°C | HPAC
Climate Change, Economics and Geo-engineering with Pf. Gernot wagner | Climate Converse
“In this episode of the Climate Converse Podcast, we sit down with Professor Gernot Wagner, a climate economist at the Columbia School of Business and author of Geoengineering: The Gamble. We dive deep into why climate change is fundamentally a risk management problem and explore the “radical” and “unsettling” world of solar geoengineering.”
How Might Solar Geoengineering Affect Global Security? | SRM360
“An expert panel featuring Erin Sikorsky, Beth Chalecki, and Sofia Kabbej discuss:
– How climate change affects global and regional security dynamics
– Whether solar geoengineering could reduce some climate-driven security risks
– What new security risks or geopolitical tensions solar geoengineering might introduce”
Scientists for the climate - Centre for Climate Repair seminar | Centre for Climate Repair
“Scientists at the University of Cambridge are studying not just the effects of climate change, but what we might be able to do about it. On 12th February 2026, we got to hear about work across disciplines that is helping to build actionable ideas for tackling climate change.”
APS GPC: Solar Geoengineering — the looming train wreck | American Physical Society
Solar Geoengineering — the looming train wreck
Speaker: Raymond Pierrehumbert (Oxford University)
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My big beef is we aren't even doing what we know is relatively safe and doable enough now. We need to get all the srm and cdr tech well studied for future deployment. My message to fellow srmers is : " While we perfect on how to deploy in the sky, please stand strong on what we can do on the surface". Bill McKibben is right on the idea of a "silver buckshot plan". My question is " Why don't we seriously use the buckshot we have now and just wait for miracles or tech to evolve after the carbon sinks are gone?"