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Research Paper: Geoengineering and Global Security: The Geopolitics of Unilateral Climate Intervention (IUJSS)
News Brief: Monthly Solar Geoengineering Updates (December’2025) (Solar Geoengineering Updates)
Interview: ‘We exist to fund the stuff that is transformational’: Aria for chemist who wants to tackle key challenge of our age (Royal Society of Chemistry)
Read on to unpack more updates:
Geoengineering and Global Security: The Geopolitics of Unilateral Climate Intervention
Authors: Rukya Zaman Juthi
Synopsis: SRM is gaining attention as a rapid and technically feasible response to worsening climate change, often framed as affordable and effective. However, SRM raises serious ethical, political, and security concerns. This paper examines the risks of unilateral geoengineering, arguing it could destabilize power relations, intensify geopolitical rivalries, and deepen environmental and social inequities. Without robust global governance, transparency, and inclusive participation, SRM may worsen the very crises it seeks to address, turning climate change into a geopolitical conflict over control, legitimacy, and accountability.
In the era of overshoot, are climate risk assessments fit for purpose?
Authors: James G Dyke and Mandi Bissett
Synopsis: As global warming is likely to overshoot 1.5°C, climate policy is increasingly considering geoengineering options, including large-scale carbon dioxide removal and solar radiation management. While these approaches could help limit and reverse warming, they introduce significant biophysical and socioeconomic risks. This paper argues that existing climate risk assessment methods may be ill-suited to evaluate geoengineering impacts, given the potential for complex, destabilising feedbacks across social and Earth systems. It calls for holistic, integrative risk frameworks to more effectively assess and govern geoengineering-related risks.
Sensitivity of Arctic sea ice recovery to stratospheric aerosol injection latitude
Authors: Hyerim Kim, Hyemi Kim, Daniele Visioni & Ewa M. Bednarz
Synopsis: CMIP6 projections suggest Arctic sea ice could disappear seasonally by the mid-2030s. Using CESM2–WACCM6 simulations, this study assesses whether SAI could preserve Arctic sea ice and how outcomes depend on injection latitude. Results show that shifting aerosol injection closer to the North Pole leads to rapid recovery of sea-ice extent and volume, driven by changes in clear-sky and cloud radiative effects and surface albedo. Under fixed injection rates, sea-ice recovery varies strongly by latitude and does not scale directly with global mean temperature.
Enhanced radiative cooling by large aerosol particles from wildfire-driven thunderstorms
Authors: Yaowei Li, John A. Dykema, David A. Peterson, Xu Feng, Xiaoli Shen, Nicole A. June, Michael D. Fromm, et al.
Synopsis: Large wildfires can form pyrocumulonimbus (pyroCb) clouds that loft smoke aerosols into the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere, where they persist for months and influence climate. Using rare in situ aircraft measurements of 5-day-old pyroCb smoke, this study finds unusually large particles (500–600 nm) formed via cloud processing and coagulation. These particles increase outgoing radiation by 30–36%, enhancing radiative cooling, suggesting climate models may underestimate pyroCb cooling as such events become more frequent.
A Constructed Closure of the Bering Strait can Prevent an AMOC Tipping - Preprint
Authors: Jelle Soons, Henk A. Dijkstra
Synopsis: The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) is a critical climate tipping element that could collapse under sufficient CO₂ forcing or freshwater input. Using an Earth System Model of Intermediate Complexity, this study finds that an artificial closure of the Bering Strait could increase the AMOC’s safe carbon budget—by up to ~500 PgC—if implemented while the circulation remains strong. However, if AMOC is already weakened, closure may reduce stability, highlighting timing as crucial for this intervention’s effectiveness.
TOA instantaneous radiative forcing of sampled pyroCb aerosols compared to typical non-pyroCb smoke and modeled wildfire aerosols
(Source)Solar Geoengineering Updates - Monthly Solar Geoengineering Updates (December’2025)
The Conversation – Clouds are vital to life – but many are becoming wispy ghosts. Here’s how to see the changes above us
Inevitable & Obvious - Nature Abhors a Narrative Vacuum
El Pais – David King, chemist: ‘There are scientists studying how to cool the planet; nobody should stop these experiments from happening’
Make Sunsets – Effective Balloonism
ERR – Estonian climate researcher: Cleaner air might contribute to faster warming
LinkedIn – What does a board game tell us about the new age of climate overshoot?
Royal Society of Chemistry – ‘We exist to fund the stuff that is transformational’: Aria for chemist who wants to tackle key challenge of our age
Paul Hansel – Reflective satellites, meet dimensional analysis
Discover WildLife – Refreezing the Arctic, brightening the clouds so they reflect the sun’s rays – the crazy but serious geoengineering ideas that could save our planet
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Brightening Arctic Clouds With Sea Salt | Marine Cloud Brightening | Remove and Reflect Podcast
“This episode covers a research paper that investigates the viability of Marine Cloud Brightening (MCB) as a localized climate intervention to stabilize Arctic temperatures and preserve sea ice. By using three distinct Earth System Models, the study simulates the injection of sea-salt aerosols to increase the reflectivity of clouds over open ocean areas. The results indicate that while this method can effectively cool the Arctic and restore ice levels, the amount of salt required varies significantly between models due to uncertainties in aerosol-cloud interactions. Importantly, the simulations suggest that focusing this cooling at high latitudes creates fewer disruptions to tropical rainfall compared to other geoengineering methods. However, the authors emphasize that their work is an idealized modeling exercise and does not address technical feasibility, ecological consequences, or the governance challenges of such a deployment.”
Can we dim the sun to cool the Earth? | CGTN
“As global temperatures continue to rise due to greenhouse gas emissions, can we dim the sunlight to cool the Earth?
The idea may sound extreme, but solar radiation management, or solar geo-engineering, has already become a serious subject of scientific research. And it’s not just scientists—billionaires like Elon Musk and Bill Gates have also shown interest.
How viable is this concept in practice? What ethical, environmental, and global governance challenges could it bring?
Zhao Ying speaks with John Moore, a research professor at the Arctic Center, University of Lapland in Finland. From 2015 to ‘22, he led the Chinese geoengineering research program while serving as Chief Scientist at the College of Global Change and Earth System Science, Beijing Normal University.”
08 January | Online - Carbon Removal Won’t Scale in Time by MEER
30 January | Online - Could solar geoengineering help protect coral reefs? by SRM360
9-13 March 2026 | Kyoto, Japan - CMIP Community Workshop (CMIP26)
03-08 May | Vienna, Austria & Online - EGU26
13-15 May | University of Nottingham - IAA Planetary Sunshade Workshop by Planetary Sunshade Foundation
17-19 March | Tokyo, Japan - Sixteenth GeoMIP 2026 Meeting by Alan Robock and Daniele Visioni
28 – 29 May | Belgium - International Forum on Solar Radiation Modification Research Governance by Co-Create
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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