Arctic Sea Ice Restoration Research Fund
Why Arctic Sea Ice?
Arctic summer sea ice is critical to global climate regulation and regional climate stability, and it is projected to disappear by mid-century. The loss of summer sea ice has accelerated overall Arctic warming, which is directly related to increasing melt of the Greenland Ice Sheet and thaw of Arctic permafrost. These in turn increase sea level rise and methane-driven warming. An ice-free summer will fundamentally alter systems that support both Arctic and global populations, disrupting ecosystems, weather patterns, and access to resources, while introducing new societal and security challenges.
Read more on the importance of Arctic sea ice, its role in Earth’s energy balance, and why Ocean Visions focuses on Arctic sea ice, or explore our broader work: Repair program.
Is there a Responsible Path Forward for Arctic Repair?
Interventions that could help maintain or rebuild Arctic sea ice may represent one of the most powerful levers available to slow planetary heating and reduce non-linear climate risks to people and nature on timescales that matter. While the only permanent way to reduce the warming of the planet is to dramatically cut greenhouse gas emissions and remove massive amounts of legacy carbon pollution, projections show these actions are unlikely to happen fast enough to prevent summer sea ice loss. The outsized risks associated with that loss have prompted exploration of additional approaches that could help slow ice decline at the same time as emissions reduction and carbon removal efforts continue.
Answering Critical Questions: The Role of the Arctic Sea Ice Restoration Research Fund
Ocean Visions’ earlier work on the digital Arctic Sea Ice Road Maps, a collaborative assessment effort to identify knowns and unknowns of 21 potential approaches to slow the loss of Arctic sea ice, demonstrated that we lack key scientific information needed to understand the fundamentals of many of these proposed ideas – such as efficacy, safety, ecological impacts, impacts on temperature and albedo, etc. Research into Arctic sea ice restoration has been severely underfunded and hence the knowledge gaps are very large.
To close these knowledge gaps, Ocean Visions created the Arctic Sea Ice Restoration Research Fund. The Fund supports high-priority, transparent research on the most promising and under-examined strategies to protect and restore Arctic sea ice. The Fund directs resources to first-order priorities identified in the Road Maps, enabling responsible progress where little activity currently exists. By pooling contributions from multiple donors, the Fund intends to increase its capacity to support research at the scale this challenge requires. Central management of a research portfolio will allow us to align learning across the diverse approaches, and to foster wider collaboration that can accelerate progress in a way no single project could achieve alone.
Go Deeper:
- Get an overview of the Marine Ecosystem Repair program
Funding Opportunities
(Closed) – 2025 – Advancing Understanding of Approaches to Protect and Restore Arctic Sea Ice Request for Proposals: solicited proposals that will help determine the potential of three specific approaches of the 21 covered in the Arctic Sea Ice Road Maps. These are: blocking sea ice export, marine cloud brightening applied to the Arctic, and mixed-phase cloud thinning.
– Inputs to the RFP include the Arctic Sea Ice Road Maps first-order priorities and the Ocean Visions Sea Ice Convening (Dec 2024).
– Application and Review Process: Applicants submitted Letters of Intent (LOIs), and a subset of applicants were invited to submit full proposals. LOIs were reviewed by program staff and a science advisor. Full proposals were reviewed and discussed by an independent expert panel against the criteria outlined in the RFP. Ocean Visions made final award selections.
Frequently Asked Questions
We are facing a reality completely independent of this research that not enough attention and energy are focused on emissions reduction and removing carbon. We need to do everything possible to change that reality. However, it is an equally serious risk to not explore potential approaches to avoid dangerous tipping points. We must address and seek to reverse the risks of dangerous climate change using all possible tools, given the current trajectories of climate change impacts.
While Ocean Visions supports responsible research to advance knowledge of interventions that might avoid irreversible climate-driven changes to marine ecosystems, we are firm in our belief that the only permanent way to slow, and ultimately reverse, climate change impacts is through deep decarbonization and massive carbon removal/cleanup.
Ocean Visions’ work on interventions research is based on the best available science on climate risk and tipping points. That science establishes the real possibility that neither rapid decarbonization nor negative emissions, alone nor combined, will reduce the warming of the planet in time to prevent dramatic and sustained ecosystem shifts—which could further perpetuate climate disruption and threaten humans and nature. Developing additional methods to lessen risks to ecosystems and tipping points in the near term while we continue to work on phasing out emissions, and permanently removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, may offer a path for reducing risks while also maintaining and repairing marine ecosystems and climate over the long term.
For these reasons, Ocean Visions works on a more comprehensive approach that prioritizes decarbonization and carbon removal, at the same time as conducting rigorous and transparent research to explore whether we can protect and repair key ecosystems from the worst climate impacts.
Scientific research into potential marine ecosystem repair and climate intervention ideas needs to be conducted transparently; with robust peer review and multidisciplinary collaboration; and with free, prior, and informed consent from Indigenous rights-holders in any relevant geographies, as well as input from local communities who might be impacted.
Results of research projects should then be used for collaborative and inclusive decision-making about how to move forward, including ruling out intervention ideas that demonstrate potential negative consequences, those that do not have significant potential to protect or restore Arctic sea ice, and those that are not feasible or scalable.
Our 2025 request for proposals is focused on short-term projects that will elucidate the potential of a subset of approaches covered in the Arctic Sea Ice Road Map. These projects will use existing regional and global models, satellite observations, historical ship-based observations, and land-based field instrument observations. All models and observational data used in these studies are publicly available. No new observations will be collected, and no field testing will be conducted as part of these projects.
After the conclusion of these projects, work across these areas will still be necessary to better answer outstanding questions about the cost and logistical feasibility of different ideas, as well as their potential environmental and social impacts.
Impact and risk analysis must also take into account the very real risks of irreversible and incalculable losses of natural ecosystems, biodiversity, and human communities if we maintain our current climate trajectories.
In the future, controlled outdoor field studies will become necessary to further understand approaches. Any such studies would have to comply with all relevant environmental regulations, and depending on where they are conducted, include free, prior, and informed consent from Indigenous rights-holders in any relevant geographies, as well as input from local communities who might be impacted.
At this early stage, each project outlined an engagement plan specific to the research details and questions. Primary stakeholders identified by the project teams spanned a wide range of Arctic science networks; Federal U.S. Science agencies; policy and governance groups in the Arctic; Indigenous community leaders, and commercial and governmental groups in Greenland and Canada; and international scientific organizing bodies. Projects plan to disseminate their results through peer-reviewed publications, presentations, and media interviews.
Beyond these individual plans, Ocean Visions works to broaden and coordinate engagement across the field. This includes organizing convenings at scientific and policy meetings, and facilitating dialogue with formal governance bodies representing countries, Indigenous Peoples, and international stakeholders. These efforts ensure that research is conducted transparently, informed by diverse perspectives, and connected to broader conversations about Arctic science, policy, and potential interventions.
No, there is not enough information on most of the approaches currently under consideration to know if they could be effective in slowing the loss of Arctic sea ice and what their impacts may be. Ocean Visions supports accelerated research on these potential climate intervention approaches to build the knowledge needed to evaluate potential future use. In addition, there would need to be more work to ensure appropriate governance frameworks are available to guide deployment of climate intervention approaches.
The Arctic Sea Ice Road Map outlines 21 approaches across 5 different categories. Two of these categories are focused on Arctic Conservation and Pollution Management via reduction or removal of black carbon, methane, and carbon dioxide. While these approaches alone will not prevent the near-term loss of sea ice, they are essential for the long-term health of the Arctic Ocean and for supporting sea ice preservation.
Methods and tools in Arctic Conservation and Pollution Management are well-established and could be deployed or scaled immediately to enhance impact.
The Ocean Visions Arctic Sea Ice Restoration Research Fund focuses on approaches with potential near-term impacts on Arctic sea ice. At the same time, we engage in broader national and international efforts supporting Arctic Conservation and Pollution Management and amplify the work of other organizations in these areas. Together, these initiatives form a holistic strategy for preserving sea ice and maintaining the stability of Arctic systems.