Near-term Earth System Risk and Intervention: A Roadmap for Research and Decision-making
Escalating threats to Earth system safety and security demand concerted efforts to better understand near-term risks and possible approaches to reducing warming directly by increasing the reflection of sunlight from the atmosphere. Our interactive roadmap is part of an evolving collaborative effort to chart a path to ensure a safe and secure Earth system in time enough to matter.
Charting a Path for Research
There are major gaps in the information and capabilities required to evaluate the potential for sunlight reflection to reduce risks to near-team Earth system safety and security. Ambitious but achievable goals and objectives are required to fill them.
Critical Gaps
The effects of aerosols on clouds and the Earth system are among the largest uncertainties in near-term projections, with estimates of anthropogenic aerosol influences ranging from 0.2-1.1°C. Major gaps include observations, modeling, analysis and scientific studies.
Land and ocean uptake and emission of gases ("carbon fluxes") are uncertain and insufficiently measured, limiting visibility of the release of gases or heat back into the Earth system ("feedbacks").
Tipping points for abrupt changes in major natural systems are insufficiently measured and analyzed, limiting early warning and risk analyses.
Earth system research requires vast computing and advanced technology resources that have been slow in adoption, while funding for atmospheric research and observations has declined in real terms over recent decades.
Overarching Goals
Improved ability to monitor and project the atmosphere and Earth system.
Sufficient information and options to prevent significant escalation in extreme Earth system impacts.
Monitoring and avoidance of significant Earth system feedbacks and tipping points in major natural systems.
Mechanisms for cooperative and effective governance and decision-making on anthropogenic aerosols, sunlight reflection and meteorological extreme risk response.
5-Year Objectives
Characterize key atmospheric processes in models and analytical tools to reduce uncertainty and support analysis of their effects at large scales.
Evaluate the projected impacts and risks of a range of Earth system change, aerosol and SRM scenarios.
Expand observations of aerosols and other Earth system influences in the atmosphere.
Identify and grow mechanisms for effective governance.
“To bring global temperatures down quickly, the only button we can push - that we know about - is solar radiation modification. There are many uncertainties, which is why scientists should be studying the issue carefully.”
David Fahey
Co-Chair of the Scientific Assessment Panel of the Montreal Protocol and Director of the Chemical Sciences Laboratory, National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration
5-Year Research Roadmap for Scientific Assessment
Research takes time, and there is a pressing need to define and deliver against ambitious but achievable goals within a time frame relevant for progress (i.e. 5 years) and designed to a shared set of goals and objectives—a “roadmap” for research and governance— to protect people and natural systems in the coming decades.
Critical Path Research: Marine Cloud Brightening Example
Delivering sufficient information for evaluation of SRM approaches requires a set of dependent research and innovation activities on aerosol interactions at small scales to improve model simulations of their effects at larger scales. These take time to plan, execute and analyze and could delay the timeline for effective assessment.
Integrated Research: Intervention to Reduce Tipping Point Risks
The roadmap for research to prevent abrupt changes combines advancing research and observation on the system at risk (ice sheet, permafrost, etc.) with the roadmap of research for SRM and the near-term Earth system, and for integrated analyses to bring these together.
Framework for Global Cooperation
Official reports from the United Nations, United States, European Union and scientific academies have recommended research and scientific assessment on sunlight reflection. A “roadmap” for research could facilitate expanded international participation in research and more cooperative and effective decision-making to protect people and natural systems in the coming decades.
Roadmap for Science-based Governance and Decision-making
The most successful environmental protection framework, the Montreal Protocol, employs three building blocks to ensure actions are made cooperatively and informed by science: Research, Scientific assessment, and Science-based decision-making and governance. Periodic expert assessment is the basis for effective decision-making for environmental safety.
SilverLining’s interactive roadmap is part of an evolving effort to chart specific, achievable paths for research to accelerate understanding and capabilities for addressing near-term Earth system risk described in an earlier report and peer-reviewed paper.
SilverLining Report, February 2023
Near-term Climate Risk and Intervention: A Roadmap for Research, U.S. Research Investment and International Scientific Cooperation
A roadmap for the essential research and investments required to assess sunlight reflection and its potential to reduce the risks to Earth system safety and security.
Peer-reviewed Paper: Climatic Change, October 2022
Acknowledgements
Kareem Ahmed, University of Central Florida; Bruce Anderson, NASA Langley Research Center; Stephen O. Anderson, Institute for Governance & Sustainable Development; Govindisamy Bala, Indian Institute of Science; V. Balaji, Schmidt Sciences; Anna Bershteyn, NYU Langone Health; Donald Bingaman, VPE Aerospace; Daniel Bodansky; Arizona State University; Olivier Boucher, Institut Pierre- Simon Laplace; Michael Diamond, Florida State University; Sarah Doherty, University of Washington; Michael Dunne, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory; David Fahey, NOAA; Piers Forster, University of Leeds; Sean Garner, Bright Technologies; James Haywood, Exeter University; Matthew Henry, Exeter University; James W. Hurrell, Colorado State University; Ken Jucks, NASA; Alicia Karspeck, CWorthy; Anton Kiskenen, Operaatio Arktis; Nana Ama Browne Klutse, University of Ghana; Christopher Lennard, University of Cape Town; Ernie Lewis, Brookhaven National Laboratory; Douglas MacMartin, Cornell University; Jessica Medrado, SRI; Philip Rasch, University of Washington; Alan Robock, Rutgers University; Tapio Schneider, California Institute of Technology; Jessica Seddon, Yale University; Jyoti Singh, Rutgers University; Robert Socolow, Princeton University; Steven Strongin, RAND Corporation; Colm Sweeney, NOAA; Joel Thornton, University of Washington; Paul Wennberg, California Institute of Technology; George T. Whitesides; and Robert Wood, University of Washington and Fangqun Yu, SUNY Albany.
Special thanks to
Decimal Studios and Aarushi Shah for design.