We’re committed to responsible stewardship, transparency, accountability + good governance. All funded research in this programme must comply with the following governance principles:
To ensure this, all our funded teams have signed a binding Intellectual Property (IP) Pledge. This legal commitment ensures:
\nAll experimental data is made public for scrutiny by the global scientific community.
\nAll patents are free for research. Any team member must provide a royalty-free licence for anyone to use their patents for research purposes.
\nOversight Committee
\n
To ensure rigorous and responsible governance, this programme benefits from an independent Oversight Committee composed of international experts and co-chaired by Professors Piers Forster and Jessica Seddon. The Committee advises ARIA leadership and plays a crucial role in scrutinising outdoor experiment plans, providing expert recommendations, and may advise against funding experiments unless certain modifications are made. While ultimate funding decisions rest with ARIA, the Oversight Committee has the authority to comment publicly and independently on experiment funding decisions and on other matters related to the programme and the wider field.
The committee focuses on:
\nSupporting effective oversight of the programme's outdoor experiments and guiding transparent communication of findings.
\nShaping international norms and standards for the responsible governance of such experiments.
\nContributing constructively to the wider international discussion on potential governance mechanisms for climate cooling approaches.
Learn more about the Committee's remit, members, and work
\n","mediumLayout":false,"fullWidth":false},{"type":"team-cards","items":[{"image":{"src":"/media/qd5lltno/ivan-1.jpg?width=1000&height=1000&format=webp&v=1dbdb7e61dd7ff0","alt":"Headshot of Ivan Jayapurna"},"name":"Ivan Jayapurna","text":"Ivan joined ARIA from the University of California, Berkeley, with a PhD in materials science and engineering. While studying, Ivan co-led several tech spinout efforts, was twice funded by the National Science Foundation I-Corps, and co-founded a technical consultancy for biotech startups.","position":"Programme Director"},{"image":{"src":"/media/0qondquh/alexsmith.jpg?width=1000&height=1000&format=webp&v=1dcbb9c2b1d3920","alt":"Alexsmith"},"name":"Alex Smith","text":"Alex is a project management professional with experience in complex transformations. He recently streamlined national public service infrastructure for the Nursing and Midwifery Council and has led strategic initiatives at the London School of Economics, including delivering programmes, establishing governance and replacing legacy systems. Alex supports ARIA as an operating partner from Pace.","position":"Programme Specialist"},{"image":{"src":"/media/g3npbzvx/jose-videira-1.jpg?width=1000&height=1000&format=webp&v=1dcbb9c4a39da70","alt":"Jose Videira 1"},"name":"José Videira","text":"José has been working in deeptech startups since the age of 15, with a core interest in materials integration and manufacturing resilience. He spent 8 years in a startup he co-founded, taking a dual-use material technology from TRL 0 to 6, and driving the deployment of physics-based AI/ML into production lines. He has a PhD in solid state physics from Imperial College London.","position":"Technical Specialist"}],"title":"","text":""},{"type":"team-cards","items":[{"image":{"src":"/media/qd5lltno/ivan-1.jpg?width=1000&height=1000&format=webp&v=1dbdb7e61dd7ff0","alt":"Headshot of Ivan Jayapurna"},"name":"Ivan Jayapurna","text":"Ivan joined ARIA from the University of California, Berkeley, with a PhD in materials science and engineering. While studying, Ivan co-led several tech spinout efforts, was twice funded by the National Science Foundation I-Corps, and co-founded a technical consultancy for biotech startups.","position":"Programme Director"},{"image":{"src":"/media/0qondquh/alexsmith.jpg?width=1000&height=1000&format=webp&v=1dcbb9c2b1d3920","alt":"Alexsmith"},"name":"Alex Smith","text":"Alex is a project management professional with experience in complex transformations. He recently streamlined national public service infrastructure for the Nursing and Midwifery Council and has led strategic initiatives at the London School of Economics, including delivering programmes, establishing governance and replacing legacy systems. Alex supports ARIA as an operating partner from Pace.","position":"Programme Specialist"},{"image":{"src":"/media/g3npbzvx/jose-videira-1.jpg?width=1000&height=1000&format=webp&v=1dcbb9c4a39da70","alt":"Jose Videira 1"},"name":"José Videira","text":"José has been working in deeptech startups since the age of 15, with a core interest in materials integration and manufacturing resilience. He spent 8 years in a startup he co-founded, taking a dual-use material technology from TRL 0 to 6, and driving the deployment of physics-based AI/ML into production lines. He has a PhD in solid state physics from Imperial College London.","position":"Technical Specialist"}],"title":"","text":""},{"type":"download","title":"Resources","columns":[{"header":"Real Ice","links":[{"isActive":false,"text":"Community engagement summary, Winter 2025/26 [PDF - 484.73Kb]","href":"/","title":""},{"isActive":false,"text":"Nunavut Impact Review Board’s screening report [PDF - 379.95Kb]","href":"/","title":""},{"isActive":false,"text":"Scientific research licence for experiments from the Nunavut Research Institute [PDF - 908.81Kb]","href":"/","title":""}]},{"header":"Arctic Reflections","links":[{"isActive":false,"text":"Community engagement summary, Winter 2025/6 [PDF - 1.12Mb]","href":"/","title":""},{"isActive":false,"text":"Nunavut Impact Review Board’s screening report [PDF - 534.29Kb]","href":"/","title":""},{"isActive":false,"text":"Scientific research licence for experiments from the Nunavut Research Institute [PDF - 851.53Kb]","href":"/","title":""}]},{"header":"Oversight + scrutiny","links":[{"isActive":false,"text":"RASI: Oversight Committee's full recommendation (9 December 2025) [PDF - 151.07Kb]","href":"/","title":""},{"isActive":false,"text":"RASI: Reply from and the CEO's formal decision letter (18 December 2025) [PDF - 94.91Kb]","href":"/","title":""}]}]},{"type":"accordion","title":"
We prioritise transparency, public engagement, and risk minimisation. Project teams planning an outdoor experiment must navigate a formal, multi-stage approval process. This ensures no funding for an outdoor experiment is released without rigorous technical analysis and meaningful community engagement. Here are the key stages:
","items":[{"title":"Preparation: technical design + pre-site selection","text":"Rising global temperatures increase the likelihood of crossing climate tipping points – abrupt and potentially irreversible shifts in the Earth’s climate system. While decarbonisation is the only sustainable way to reduce the risk of triggering these events in the long term, our current warming trajectory already makes a number of tipping points distinctly possible over the next century.
\nThis has driven international interest into approaches to actively reduce global temperatures in the short term.
\nThere is a crucial need for objective and trustworthy science in this area to better understand these proposed approaches. Our programme intends to answer fundamental scientific questions on the feasibility and risks of cooling approaches.
\nYes. In cases where essential scientific questions cannot be answered by modelling or indoor experiments alone, five projects will undertake carefully controlled outdoor experiments to responsibly gather crucial real-world data.
\nAny outdoor experiment will only go ahead once independent environmental impact and legal assessments have been made, and if the results of these suggest that the experiments will be safe (the assessments will also be made publicly available before experiments start). These experiments will only go ahead after a period of meaningful public engagement with local communities, and will all be subject to oversight by the programme’s independent oversight committee.
\nOur programme funds five outdoor experiments:
\nOne project will explore the efficacy of rethickening arctic sea ice.
\nTwo projects will explore the effects of seawater spray on cloud reflectivity.
\nOne project will explore the effects of electric charge on cloud reflectivity.
\nOne project studies how milligram quantities of mineral dusts age in the stratosphere. In this controlled experiment, none of these materials will be released; all are returned to the ground for analysis by scientists.
\nCrucially, all ARIA-funded experiments will be time-bound, limited in size and scale, and their effects will dissipate within 24 hours or be fully reversible. Experiments can only proceed if they fully meet ARIA’s stringent governance requirements. ARIA is not deploying these technologies, and there is no risk of termination shock.
","links":[]},{"title":"Robust scrutiny: multi-level, independent","text":"We’re also funding 4 projects that will monitor natural climate processes:
\nTwo projects will examine different aspects of the formation and properties of cirrus clouds, to better understand how these clouds influence the climate.
\nOne project will develop a lightweight and low-cost balloon system for collecting climate data from the high atmosphere.
\nOne project will use drones to study emissions from selected, regularly erupting volcanoes to better understand the effects that the emissions from these volcanoes have on the climate.
\nRemaining projects will research computer modelling, public perception, ecological studies, governance, and ethics in the field of climate cooling.
","links":[]},{"title":"Recommendation: approve, improve, or deny","text":"Any outdoor experiments will first be subject to an independent and publicly available environmental impact and legal assessment, as well as a co-design process with local communities.
\nThe first outdoor experiments are expected to commence in early 2026, and will be a continuation of ice thickening experiments being conducted in Canada. The teams conducting this ice thickening have worked in these communities before and will comply with local regulations.
\nOutdoor experiments in the UK will only take place if the appropriate community engagement work and the necessary assessments have taken place. No decisions have been taken yet on the locations for UK-based experiments.
\n