Arctic Sea Ice Restoration Research Fund RFP
Ocean Visions’ comprehensive agenda to address the ocean-climate crisis includes ocean-based pathways to reduce emissions, remove legacy carbon pollution, and responsibly research approaches that may protect and restore marine ecosystems – including Arctic sea ice.
The Arctic is integral to global climate, and changes in the Arctic have and will continue to have far-reaching impacts globally. Arctic sea ice is a critical component of the global climate system because of its contributions to Earth’s reflectivity – reflecting heat energy away from Earth. As sea ice is lost, the Arctic Ocean is absorbing more heat energy, contributing to the rise in Arctic temperatures four times the global average, making it the fastest changing region on the planet due to anthropogenic climate change. The significant loss of summer sea ice to date has already had profound impacts on the Arctic region, its ecosystems and people, the global climate system, and the broader ocean. The loss of summer sea ice is a precursor to and accelerator of Greenland Ice Sheet melting and Arctic permafrost thaw – leading respectively to global sea level rise and release of methane that will cause further warming. In addition, the absence of sea ice will fundamentally transform Arctic ecosystems and impact the people and other living creatures that rely on them as well as introduce new security challenges amongst Arctic nations. Prolonging the health of Arctic sea ice is a potentially powerful tool to lessening the devastating impacts society faces from climate change.
We know that the only permanent way to stop the loss of Arctic sea ice, and ultimately enable it to rebuild, is to reduce global temperatures. That means drastically cutting emissions of greenhouse gases as well as cleaning up and removing the legacy greenhouse gases built up in our atmosphere and oceans. Unfortunately, society is not on track to reduce global temperatures in time to prevent the complete loss of summer sea ice. Therefore, a range of additional approaches are under consideration to try to slow the loss of Arctic sea ice alongside efforts to reduce and remove emissions of greenhouse gases.
Society does not have 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. In addition, very few avenues for funding are available to support research into these ideas, impairing rigorous evaluation and consideration of approaches.
In 2024 Ocean Visions published its Arctic sea ice road map, a synthesis and evaluation of 21 known and potential approaches to slowing the loss of Arctic sea ice, following more than a year of intensive research. The road map was developed in partnership with an international, multidisciplinary team of experts spanning climate and earth science, governance, and Arctic issues. The road map identifies existing knowledge gaps and “first-order priorities” – the most important next set of actions needed to further advance our understanding of each approach.
To advance responsible exploration of the most promising approaches, Ocean Visions created the Arctic Sea Ice Restoration Research Fund, pooling resources from donors to fund high priority research needed to increase societal knowledge of potential approaches to protecting and restoring Arctic sea ice. The Fund will only support scientifically rigorous research that is conducted transparently, with information sharing, and a clear strategy to address issues such as governance, equity, risks, and justice.
Read more about the importance of Arctic sea ice and why Ocean Visions focuses on Arctic sea ice in its Repair program. Ocean Visons’ work to support responsible research on approaches to protect and restore Arctic sea ice is guided by these facts and principles.
Request For Proposals: Advancing understanding of approaches to protect and restore Arctic sea ice
In this first Request for Proposals (RFP) through the Arctic Sea Ice Restoration Research Fund, Ocean Visions intends to fund research projects that will help determine the potential of three specific approaches covered in the Arctic sea ice road map. This RFP focuses on blocking sea ice export, marine cloud brightening applied to the Arctic, and mixed-phase cloud thinning.
For more information, read the full RFP. Letters of Intent are due September 14 11:59 pm Eastern Time.
Frequently Asked Questions
There is a real risk that not enough attention and energy are focused on reduction emissions and removing carbon, and we need to work hard to mitigate that risk. However, it is an equally serious risk to not explore these potential approaches. We must address and seek to reverse dangerous climate change using all possible tools given the current trajectories of climate change impacts. While Ocean Visions will support 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 decarbonization and 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 cool the planet in time to prevent dramatic and sustained ecosystem shifts—further perpetuating climate disruption and threatening 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.
Insufficient action on the drivers of climate change by governments and industries, coupled with the accelerating changes we are observing and the associated risks, requires the world to now at least consider potential interventions to slow down the pace of change.
For these reasons, Ocean Visions advocates for a more comprehensive approach that prioritizes decarbonization and carbon removal, while also 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.
The research projects Ocean Visions will fund will be very low risk and will not include outdoor experiments. Our first 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. We anticipate that these projects will be conducted with laboratory studies, theoretical analyses, computer modelling, and analysis of existing observations. In some cases, new observations may be needed to learn more about baseline conditions of sea ice, the ocean, and the atmosphere. Work across these areas is necessary to better answer outstanding questions about the cost and logistical feasibility of different ideas, as well as their potential environmental and social impacts.
Any analysis of risk 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.
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 a good deal more work to ensure appropriate governance frameworks are available to guide deployment of climate intervention approaches.