Latest news with #AdvancedResearchandInventionAgency
Saba Yemen
6 days ago
- Science
- Saba Yemen
Scientists launch project to cool earth using marine clouds
London - Saba: A team of scientists at the University of Manchester has launched a project exploring the potential of marine cloud brightening as a temporary measure to mitigate global warming. The project, funded by the UK's Advanced Research and Invention Agency (ARIA), aims to study how spraying sea salt particles can enhance clouds' ability to reflect sunlight, redirecting solar radiation back into space and contributing to lower temperatures on Earth. The team also seeks to assess the impact of this technology on the global climate while considering potential environmental risks. The project is based on marine cloud brightening technology, which involves spraying fine sea salt particles into low-lying clouds over oceans. This process is expected to increase cloud reflectivity by 5-10%, potentially leading to a temporary temperature drop in specific regions—a crucial effect in combating worsening global warming. Preliminary studies suggest that this technique could reduce temperatures within a limited range of 0.5 to 1°C. However, its broader impact on the global climate remains under investigation. Professor Hugh Coe, the project's lead researcher, explained that marine cloud brightening is a temporary solution that does not address the root causes of global warming, such as greenhouse gas emissions. However, it could provide humanity with vital time to accelerate emission reductions and transition to clean energy sources. The technology relies on natural and safe sea salt, which has a short atmospheric lifespan, settling within a few days. This reversibility makes the environmental intervention more controllable compared to more radical approaches, such as stratospheric aerosol injection, whose effects are harder to manage. This project is part of broader efforts to develop innovative solutions to climate change, especially amid rising global temperatures. Dubbed "REFLECT," the project focuses on studying how microscopic sea salt particles can enhance clouds' ability to reflect sunlight back into space, potentially reducing Earth's surface temperature. Whatsapp Telegram Email Print more of (International)
Yahoo
22-05-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Penguin droppings ‘delaying' climate change
Penguin droppings are helping to stem some of the effects of climate change, a study has found. Excrement of the marine birds contains a high amount of ammonia which rises into the atmosphere and helps form clouds that deflect sunlight and lower temperatures. Cloud cover has an insulating effect on the immediate environment and in the Antarctic region is thought to have a beneficial impact on the amount of sea ice cover. Scientists have found that the guano gas reacts with sulphur in the atmosphere to produce aerosols which then attract water vapour to form fog and clouds. Data from a research station near Marambio Base in Antarctica which was close to a colony of 60,000 Adélie penguins in early 2023 was tracked by researchers at the University of Helsinki. Analysis of ammonia levels over time revealed that when the site was upwind of the colony there was only a small amount of ammonia detectable. However, when the wind carried from the penguins to the sensors, ammonia levels jumped 1,000 times higher. On one day during the study, Feb 1 2023, there was a particularly high amount of ammonia over the research station about five miles from the colony, due to favourable winds. Data show that for about six hours the amount of particles in the air increased and then a fog was created. 'The chemical composition of the cloud droplet residuals was composed almost solely of ammonia sulphate, which confirms the participation of ammonia sourced from the penguins,' the scientists write. They add: 'Given that penguin colonies span the coast of Antarctica and that they leave guano/nutrient-rich soils that continue to emit ammonia after migration, we estimate that penguins provide a substantial source of ammonia that enhances particle concentrations across the entire coastal Antarctic region.' The scientists say that the environmental benefit of the faeces-driven cloud formation is likely to be seen the most around the coastal areas inhabited by the birds, but will also spread further afield. Ammonia has a short lifespan in the atmosphere but is released from guano over several days, providing a long-term source, the scientists found, which persists after the penguins have migrated. The researchers say: 'These newly formed particles could be further transported over parts of the Southern Ocean and continental Antarctica on this timescale, which could subsequently affect aerosol concentrations over the larger Antarctic region, including further inland where aerosol sources are limited. 'This suggests that coastal penguin/bird colonies could also comprise an important source of aerosol away from the coast.' The UK government body, the Advanced Research and Invention Agency, has been looking at ways to form clouds to dim sunlight, having announced £57 million being allocated for 21 'climate cooling' projects, including five outdoor field trials. The penguin study is published in the journal Communications Earth & Environment. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
Scientific American
12-05-2025
- Science
- Scientific American
U.K. Funds Geoengineering Experiments as Global Controversy Grows
CLIMATEWIRE | As temperatures fall and sunlight wanes this winter, scientists will gather in the Canadian Arctic with drills and pumps in tow. Their mission: to refreeze the region's melting sea ice. Known as Re-Thickening Arctic Sea Ice, or RASi, the project aims to pump seawater from the ocean and spray it over the top of existing ice floes, where the cold air will freeze it solid. Researchers hope that the process will create a thicker layer of sea ice, helping undo some of the damage caused by rising global temperatures. For now, it's just an experiment — and a relatively small one at that. Over the next three winter seasons, the researchers plan to refreeze areas as large as 1 square kilometer, or 0.38 square miles. Along the way, they'll assess how the project affects the local ecology and the movement of the sea ice — and how long it takes to melt again in the summer. On supporting science journalism If you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today. The project is one of a handful of geoengineering experiments funded by the British government. UK's Advanced Research and Invention Agency (ARIA) announced on Wednesday that it would invest a total of about $60 million in climate-cooling research, spread among 21 projects. ARIA was established in 2023 to support a variety of research fields, from artificial intelligence to genetic engineering, but its investment in geoengineering studies counts as among its most controversial projects. The discourse has only grown more polarized as new research pushes once-futuristic techno-solutions into the realm of possibility. Research advocates argue that the world is not reducing greenhouse gases fast enough to meet the Paris Agreement's global climate goals. Cutting carbon emissions is still the most important way to address climate change — but as the planet heats up, they argue, scientists should understand the potential pros and cons of climate-cooling technology. But critics worry that too much emphasis on geoengineering could distract world leaders from their efforts to phase out fossil fuels and reduce emissions. Meanwhile, other recent geoengineering experiments have ended amid public criticism, including Harvard University's SCoPEX experiment, a University of Washington cloud-brightening experiment and a sea ice-refreezing project conducted by an organization known as the Arctic Ice Project. An unauthorized experiment in 2022 by the startup Make Sunsets in Baja California, Mexico, resulted in a solar geoengineering ban from the Mexican government. Meanwhile, the world's largest geoengineering conference — the Degrees Global Forum — is set to begin in Cape Town, South Africa, next week. Most of ARIA's new projects involve computer modeling, climate monitoring or social questions related to governance and ethics surrounding geoengineering. Only five projects call for real-life outdoor experiments — but they're easily the most expensive of all the research categories, totaling about $32 million in awarded funds. RASi received the most funding of all projects, at $13 million over the next 42 months. Other experiments on the list include three projects aimed at brightening clouds to reflect more sunlight away from the Earth. A fifth experiment focuses on stratospheric aerosol injection, a strategy that would spray reflective particles into the atmosphere to directly beam sunlight back into space. The project would load up various kinds of mineral dust into weather balloons to test how they interact with the air at high altitudes without directly releasing them into the sky. All outdoor experiments will undergo legal and environmental assessments in advance, said Mark Symes, an ARIA program director, in an email. And none of them will release toxic materials or deliberately set out to cool the climate, he said. The announcement garnered both concern and support from organizations involved in global conversations around geoengineering. 'The UK Government risks triggering a costly, dangerous, and distracting race to develop technologies that should never be used,' said Mary Church, a geoengineering campaign manager with the nonprofit Center for International Environmental Law, in a statement. 'Even experimenting with these technologies could further destabilise an already tense geopolitical context.' The country should instead focus on phasing out fossil fuels, she added, suggesting that even small-scale experiments could become a 'slippery slope' on the way to larger geoengineering deployments. But Kelly Wanser, executive director of the nonprofit SilverLining, said in a statement that she was 'heartened to see our friends at ARIA and the government in the UK recognize the need for responsible scientific research on potential interventions in the Earth system.' SilverLining advocates for geoengineering research. Symes emphasized that cutting carbon emissions should remain the world's priority when it comes to addressing climate change. Still, he added, more research is 'essential' for informed global decision-making around potential climate interventions. 'ARIA's programme is focused on generating fundamental scientific evidence about whether any proposed climate cooling approaches could ever be safe or feasible — or whether they should be ruled out entirely,' he said in an email.
Euronews
12-05-2025
- Science
- Euronews
Fact-checking claims about the UK's geoengineering experiments
Misinformation is circulating online after a recent announcement that the UK government is going to fund outdoor geoengineering experiments. Geoengineering refers to deliberate, large-scale interventions in the Earth's environment to try to stave off the effects of climate change. It takes two main forms: solar radiation management (SRM), where a small portion of sunlight and heat is reflected back into space to cool the Earth, and carbon dioxide removal. The UK is focusing on the former, with the government allocating some £56.8 million (€67 million) to the project, according to reports. The experiments will work with sun-reflecting particles in the stratosphere and spraying seawater on reflective clouds. The Advanced Research and Invention Agency (Aria), which is backing the plan, has said that the tests will be small in scale, and that they will also look into how geoengineering could be governed internationally. It's believed that if geoengineering proves to be safe, it could be used to cool the planet and slow global warming, giving more time to tackle the climate crisis. Yet despite assertions that the UK's plans are in the experimental stage, they haven't stopped social media users from claiming that the country has already been engaging in geoengineering for years without public consent as a way to control the population. The claims also feed into the widely debunked "chemtrails" conspiracy theory, whose believers insists that some vapour trails from planes contain harmful chemicals that are sprayed over the public around Europe or that others are being used to dim the sun and block out the light. EuroVerify put these notions to experts, who resoundingly rejected them. "It would be impossible to conduct large-scale weather modification experiments in secret. It just can't be done," said Jim Franke, researcher at the University of Chicago's geophysical sciences department. "The amount of aircraft needed to fly this material to where it needs to go, and the radiative effect, would be easily obtainable by publicly available information," he added. Wolfgang Cramer, professor of global ecology and researcher at CNRS, the French National Centre for Scientific Research, said that while there is plenty of valid criticism of geoengineering, it's disingenuous to accuse governments of looking into it with malicious intent. "I am sure that governments such as the UK and others have an honest purpose, that there's a real wish to solve one problem of humanity," he told EuroVerify. "I think there's a debate about this,* and there are not necessarily bad guys and good guys." They also refuted assertions that the UK's geoengineering experiment announcement is a cover for the fact that it and other countries have already conducted SRM in secret for years. "That's complete nonsense, there's absolutely no evidence for that," Cramer said, noting that people should be careful not to confuse SRM experiments with cloud seeding techniques used in some parts of the world to increase precipitation and produce rain. "That's not what I'm talking about when I talk about solar radiation management, because solar radiation in this definition is the long-term manipulation of the radiation balance of the atmosphere," he added. Franke made a similar point, noting that some isolated, small-scale experiments have been carried out in the past, in addition to geoengineering computer simulations, but ultimately it's unreasonable to think that governments could have been carrying out such wide-ranging procedures for so long. "Papers get published [by reputable universities] about geoengineering, so I'm sure that trickles into the online spheres and is misinterpreted in whatever way people interpret those things," he said. "There's material being generated which can be fed into this kind of conspiracy." The international community's generally sluggish attempts to slash greenhouse gas emissions have sparked widespread frustration and prompted many to turn to geoengineering in search of a weapon against global warming. However, the scientific community is divided on the technology's merits, in part due to the perception that it would divert resources away from tackling the root cause of climate change and reduce motivation to decarbonise, and also partly due to questions about how such schemes would be governed internationally. "Technically and financially, [SRM] would be possible," said Cramer. "It would require a fleet of aircraft positioned around the planet in critical places that would basically fly day and night and inject the particles into the atmosphere." "You could, based on model calculations, reduce global mean temperature a little bit by doing so," he said. However, he added that his main concerns about SRM geoengineering are how long it would all take to come into effect, how much different parts of the world would benefit from it, and how it would be overseen. "It will probably take a decade or so before you can even see the effects," he said. "And some areas would see more warming, others would see a lot less, maybe even to the point where they wouldn't even be happy about it." "You will clearly have winners and losers ... The atmosphere is a highly dynamic structure, and if you want to control the amount of radiation that goes through it at every point in time and every point of space, due to the chaotic nature of the atmosphere, this cannot be done." Experts say that a global SRM scheme would require an international body to govern its implementation, leaving it vulnerable to the political whims of the day. Any given country could in theory decide to withdraw at any point, thus harming the initiative and undoing any progress made. The body would also potentially have to last for decades or even centuries until global temperatures had been sufficiently reduced and SRM slowly phased out, requiring significant financial and technical resources. On the unwanted environmental effects, meanwhile, Franke said that SRM geoengineering could provoke a slowdown of the hydrological cycle. "If you reduce incoming solar radiation a little bit, you will reduce evaporation and the atmospheric transport of water vapour and then the corresponding precipitation," he said. "So this general slowdown of the hydrological cycle could have regional impacts as far as reduced rainfall in some regions." He added that pending further research, the extent and magnitude of this is still highly uncertain, and so whether or not solar geoengineering is beneficial in terms of water availability to people and plants across the globe is an open question.* Other side effects, such as harming photosynthesis in plants due to a reduction in sunlight, have also been raised as a potential issue, but they are not well understood and are precisely why further research and experiments are needed. Nevertheless, computer modelling so far does show that a moderate amount of SRM "would reduce almost all key climate hazards", Franke said. "Pick whichever climate hazard is most relevant to your area: extreme wet-bulb temperatures in the summertime; some sort of coastal erosion driven by sea level rise; snowpack; ice sheet melting," he said. "Whichever it is, for pretty much all of them, solar geoengineering moderates that climate hazard." "I am pro-researching geoengineering, I'm not pro-implementing geoengineering," Franke added. "The decision to do this has to be made by some international coalition of governing bodies, and using hopefully the best available research to do so." Thousands of people took part Sunday in the solemn ceremony commemorating the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Mauthausen concentration camp, an event that has been held annually since 1946 on the initiative of the survivors and their associations. The slave labour camp in upper Austria was known for its extremely harsh conditions, considered to be even more severe than in other Nazi German death camps. It held nearly 190,000 prisoners during World War II, half of whom did not survive. Those who died in the camp must not be forgotten, as the organisers of the event insisted. "Nothing can be erased. Neither the transports, nor the forced labour, imprisonment, barracks, illness, cold, lack of sleep, hunger, humiliation, degradation, beatings, screams. Nothing can, nothing must be forgotten," said Guy Dockendorf, president of the International Mauthausen Committee (CIM). Austrian President Alexander van der Bellen and several members of the Austrian government, including Chancellor Stocker, Vice Chancellor Babler and Foreign Minister Meinl-Reisinger, were in attendance. Many high-ranking international guests, including the king and queen of Spain, attended the ceremony. The concentration camp — which targeted Jewish and Romani people, socialists, anarchists and homosexuals, but also others who posed a threat to the Nazi regime — mostly consisted of inmates from Austria, Germany, Czechoslovakia and Poland, as well as Spanish Republican fighters and Yugoslav partisans, majority of which were deported from today's Slovenia and Serbia. The event, organised by the Mauthausen Committee Austria, the successor of the Austrian Mauthausen Survivors' Association, brought together international representatives to honour the memory of the victims and renew the commitment to the values of freedom, human dignity and mutual respect. The first official commemoration in Mauthausen — the last Nazi concentration camp to be liberated — took place in 1946, barely a year after liberation. More than 10,000 people gathered at the foot of the "Todesstiege" ("Death Stairs") in the camp's quarry. On that occasion, the national delegates signed an official document stating that this commemoration would be held annually. For decades, the commemoration ceremonies were mainly a matter for the survivors, always maintaining an international character but with little impact on Austrian society. Over time, the Austrian Mauthausen Committee has taken over the event's organisation in cooperation with the International Mauthausen Committee and the Austrian Lagermeinschaft Association, with public financial support and, to a greater extent, private donations.
Yahoo
08-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
The secretive government unit planning to dim the sun
Plans to block sunlight to fight global warming have inadvertently shone a light on Aria, the Government's opaque research arm. The Advanced Research and Invention Agency was set up in 2021 by Kwasi Kwarteng, the ex-Tory business secretary, and was originally the brainchild of Dominic Cummings, Boris Johnson's former chief aide. Yet few people on the street know what it is, what it does, or how much taxpayer cash is flowing into its well-financed coffers. Sure, it has a shiny website stocked with techno-waffle promising to help scientists 'reach for the edge of the possible' and foster 'opportunity spaces' but there has been little clarity on its day-to-day operations. This week, we learnt it will spend £56.8 million on 21 'climate cooling' projects, which include looking into the logistics of building a 'sun shade' in space and injecting plumes of salt water into the sky to reflect sunlight away from Earth. 'We're not trying to dim the sun,' representatives from Aria said rather disingenuously at a press briefing, knowing full well that should experiments prove successful, that is their ultimate aim. Prof Mike Hulme, of Cambridge University, pointed out that the experiments were setting Britain on a 'slippery slope' towards mass deployment of technologies that will be impossible to prove are safe, effective and reversible until they are actually in the sky. He warned: '[The sum of] £57 million is a huge amount of taxpayers' money to be spent on this assortment of speculative technologies intended to manipulate the Earth's climate.' Aria has been given an eye-watering £800 million budget to play with, with little to show for it so far, except some off-the-wall ideas, and astronomically high wage bills. Ilan Gur, the chief executive, is being paid around £450,000 annually – three times more than the Prime Minister, while Antonia Jenkinson, the chief finance officer, takes home around £215,000 and Pippy James, the chief product officer, around £175,000. In fact, Aria is blowing £4.1 million a year on wages despite having just 37 staff, with the top four staff at the company pocketing nearly £1 million of taxpayers' cash each year between them. It means essentially Aria is operating like a private company, but doing so on public finances. And it is wading into areas where the private sector would normally dominate. Playing poker with public money In January, it announced it would be giving £69 million to research on neural robots for epilepsy treatment, genetic engineering of brain cells and lab-grown brain organoids. It is also funding an NHS trial to use a brain computer interface that alters brain activity using ultrasound, in the hopes it will treat depression and addiction, as well as investing in synthetic plants and chromosomes. Such sci-fi future-gazing is usually left to billionaire tech bros or big pharma, precisely because the cost is prohibitive and private companies have the resources to soak up the risk. But the Government has given Aria free rein to embark on scientific research that 'carries a high risk of failure' – something that the public sector usually shies away from. The 'high risk, high reward' strategy is reminiscent of Elon Musk's 'fail fast' approach that has undoubtedly brought success at Space X and Tesla. But while Mr Musk had clear objectives, and put $100 million of his own money on the line, Aria's approach feels far more scattergun, as if it doesn't quite know what it is trying to achieve. It is operating like a speculative venture capital fund, essentially playing poker with the public purse. If Britain were booming, maybe this could be justified, but public sector debt is rising and now, more than ever, taxpayers are demanding their money be used wisely. Certainly its latest foray into geoengineering has been met with public incredulity. When sun-dimming experiments were first mooted last month, one Telegraph reader liked it to 'what Hanna-Barbera might have dreamed up to foil Dick Dastardly in Wacky Races'. 'Are these people insane?' asked another. Aria was set up to be Britain's equivalent of Darpa, the US defence advanced research projects agency, which was founded in 1958 by Eisenhower in response to the Soviets launching the Sputnik satellite. Darpa, dubbed 'the agency that shaped the modern world', undoubtedly sparked a wave of innovation, and can claim some of the credit for developments such as GPS, drones, personal computers, the internet and the RNA Covid jab. But unlike Aria, Darpa always stayed well within the purview of the US department of defence. Aria, in contrast, sits in a shady no-man's land, in charge of eye-watering amounts of public cash, but with little genuine accountability to the public, for all its talk of transparency and consultation. No heads will roll if its costly speculations prove worthless and it is exempt from freedom of information requests, a fact that the Liberal Democrats warned is 'nothing more than an attempt to save the Government's blushes the next time they opt for a 'high risk, no reward' project'. Aria was created in the denouement of the pandemic, when fast, agile science helped Britain create a vaccine and find crucial treatments for Covid. Then the country was operating with a vast emergency war chest. Now it is struggling to empty its bins. Many people may be thinking perhaps now is not the time for such blue sky thinking. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
