Arctic Stabilization Initiative
Advancing Arctic-targeted climate interventions to slow or reverse our trajectory toward planetary thresholds.
About
Incubated within Advanced Research for Climate Emergencies (ARC), a program of Renaissance Philanthropy, the Arctic Stabilization Initiative (ASI) advances the research needed to assess the safety, feasibility, and efficacy of Arctic-targeted climate interventions against Arctic warming. ASI delivers the predictive tools and formal scientific benchmarks necessary to evaluate whether proposed interventions can slow or reverse our trajectory toward planetary thresholds such as tipping points and loss of summer sea ice. Rather than focusing on a single technology, ASI develops a systems approach to determine which combinations of interventions could work together to stabilize core components of the Arctic climate.
The Problem
Global mean surface temperatures will soon cross 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, the minimum temperature threshold for a cluster of Arctic tipping points. The Arctic influences sea-level change, weather patterns, and ocean circulation that distributes heat across the planet. A tipping point is the threshold at which a system undergoes a self-reinforcing change that continues independently of the original forcing and cannot be reversed on human timescales. Each fraction of a degree approaching a tipping point raises the probability of crossing the threshold. The Greenland Ice Sheet and permafrost are now approaching such thresholds and summer sea ice is already in rapid decline.
The Arctic both responds to global warming and amplifies it. Ice loss exposes dark ocean water that absorbs more heat, accelerating warming beyond what emissions alone would produce. Freshwater from melting ice slows ocean circulation, which distributes heat across the planet. Collectively, these processes amplify warming in the Arctic relative to the rest of the globe, such that the Arctic is the leading edge of a changing Earth system:
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Projected to raise global sea levels by up to 0.25 meters by 2100. The freshwater it releases is already measurably slowing Atlantic Ocean circulation with downstream consequences for weather across Europe, monsoon systems in South Asia and the Sahel, and sea-level rise along the U.S. East Coast. These are the systems that grow food, supply water, and keep coasts habitable.
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Releasing carbon and methane stores to the atmosphere that have been frozen below the surface for millennia. By 2100, the cumulative emissions could rival the total historical output of the United States.
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Accounts for roughly a quarter of all the warming experienced globally to date. Multiple models project that the Arctic Ocean will be ice-free in summer as early as 2035. Ice reflects sunlight. Open water absorbs it. The difference is felt across the climate system globally.
These are systems that grow food, bring water, and sustain livable coastlines. Cutting emissions remains the primary response. Yet even under the fastest decarbonization scenarios, warming will not reverse in time to stop feedbacks already set in motion due to ice loss and permafrost thaw. At this point, risks will persist for years regardless of how quickly emissions fall. Preventing them would require stabilization of core Arctic systems on a timescale that atmospheric carbon mitigation alone cannot match. This is the gap ASI is designed to address.
The Opportunity
Early modeling of targeted atmospheric interventions suggests that Arctic cooling on the order of 1°C may be achievable. ASI has conducted preliminary cost-benefit analyses of Arctic-targeted intervention research. Using conservative assumptions, including IPCC estimates of the economic damages associated with warming, the potential scale of avoided damages is compelling relative to the estimated cost of an intervention at scale (on the order of 1000x). The case is stronger still when measured in the lives, livelihoods, and systems that a stable Arctic supports. Considering the early stage of scientific understanding, we are currently using such analyses as a planning and stress-testing tool, a way to expose and interrogate the assumptions underlying the case for research, and will continue to develop and refine it as the evidence base grows.
There are multiple targeted, time-bound climate interventions that could reduce the risk of tipping points in the Arctic. ASI will identify, evaluate, and de-risk a portfolio of Arctic-targeted interventions, determining which are most effective and safest and under which circumstances. It will also assess how different options could work together in tandem to achieve different outcomes. ASI will operate via a stage-gated structure and assess Arctic-targeted interventions on consistent criteria:
Potential to stabilize one or more Arctic tipping points
Strength of predictive understanding and availability of observational constraints
Technological readiness and scalability within a 5–10 year timeframe
Governance complexity, geopolitical burden, and social license
Degree of underinvestment relative to potential impact
Initiatives
The first intervention ASI is advancing through its stage-gated framework is Mixed-Phase Cloud Thinning (MCT). About 60% of Arctic clouds are mixed-phase, meaning they contain both ice crystals and supercooled liquid water. MCT enhances ice formation in Arctic clouds to reduce their heat-trapping effect, allowing more heat to radiate from the surface, and sea ice loss to be mitigated.
Across proposed Arctic-targeted interventions, MCT stands out in several dimensions:
Tractability: MCT is operationally equivalent to cloud seeding, with state and agency-supported cloud seeding programs already running across 11 U.S. states and Canada and elsewhere globally. This may lower technical, regulatory, and political barriers.
Strategic timing: MCT may be most effective during sea-ice thickening and transition seasons, where delaying the shift from reflective ice to dark open water by even a few weeks could yield outsized cooling benefits.
Scalability and co-benefits: Low infrastructure and resource intensity relative to other proposed interventions. Potential increases in snowfall and sea-ice reflectivity could reinforce a cooling cycle through the rest of the year.
MCT also sits at the center of one of the hardest problems in climate science that is in need of increased focus. In Arctic mixed-phase clouds, small changes can have large radiative impacts, and existing models struggle to represent many of the essential physical processes. Observational data to better constrain these processes is scarce. Evaluation of MCT requires a carefully staged integration of natural experiments, targeted observations, and multi-scale modeling, which ASI is designed to build and deliver.
Team
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Charlotte DeWald
Program Director, Arctic Stabilization Initiative
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Ryan O'Donnell
Senior Strategic Advisor, Arctic Stabilization Initiative
Scientific Advisory Board
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Dr. Matthew Shupe
Senior Research Scientist, Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences at the University of Colorado and NOAA
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Christina McCluskey
Scientist V, The National Center for Atmospheric Research
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Graham Feingold
Research Scientist, NOAA
Our Partner
ASI was incubated by Advanced Research for Climate Emergencies (ARC), a Renaissance Philanthropy program that identifies high-leverage catastrophic-risk interventions and seeds new initiatives through analysis, scoping, and early-stage program development.