The UK's Advanced Research and Invention Agency (ARIA) is allocating £81mn to a new programme that aims to create early warning systems for climate tipping points.

These are thresholds within the Earth's climate ecosystem, which — if crossed — can trigger devastating and often irreversible changes.

As no early warning mechanisms currently exist, ARIA is hoping for a scientific first. It has opened calls for proposals to R&D teams across academia and industry, from universities and private labs to startups and SMEs.

“Finding early warning signals for climate tipping points is like searching for a needle in a haystack,” said Sarah Bohndiek, programme director at ARIA.

The five-year-long programme, called Forecasting Tipping Points, will focus on two particular tipping points.

One is the Greenland Ice Sheet, which covers 1.7 million square kilometres in the Arctic. It has been retreating alarmingly over the last four decades, contributing to rising sea levels. If it melts completely, global sea levels would rise by about 7 metres.

The other is the North Atlantic Subpolar Gyre, an oceanic current that carries relatively warm water along the coast of Norway and helps maintain a moderate climate in northern Europe. The increasing weakening of the gyre could lead to lower temperatures in the region.

Towards building early warning systems

ARIA will support teams across three different technical areas:

• The design of new sensing tools that can address unmet observation needs
• The deployment of both new and existing sensing technologies to create a monitoring observational network
• The development of computational models that can create and test early warning systems

Interested teams can submit their concept papers by September 23.

“This programme aims to reshape our observational capabilities, combining sensing technologies with AI,” Bohndiek said. The vision is to develop an early warning system that can “confidently predict” when a tip will occur, and its potential consequences, allowing for timely interventions.

Additional funding call for next-gen crops

ARIA is directing a further £62.4mn to explore sustainable agriculture practices with synthetic biology.

The dedicated programme, dubbed Synthetic Plants, aims to develop synthetic chromosomes and chloroplasts that are viable in a living plant. The goal is to imbue plants with new functionalities, ranging from increased resilience to environmental stress and pests to reduced use of water.

The programme will also last for five years. Funding for the first three will focus on the following two areas:

• The design and generation of synthetic chromosomes and chloroplasts
• Exploring the social and ethical considerations around these technologies

The call for proposals is also open to teams from both academia and industry. Interested candidates can submit applications by September 25.