Forecasting Tipping Points
Backed by £81m, this program aims to enhance our climate change response by developing an early warning system for tipping points.
Why this programme
Major parts of the Earth system are at risk of crossing climate tipping points within the next century, with severe consequences for biodiversity, food security, agriculture, and humanity.
Despite the potential impact, we’re poorly equipped to characterise the long-term trends of our climate systems, or predict the future risk of runaway, self-perpetuating change. Our best observational datasets are at a nascent stage, while our best climate models are computationally expensive and do not capture all the physical processes we need.
What we’re shooting for
Combining expertise in observation and modelling with innovative sensing systems, we’ll look to develop a proof-of-concept for an early warning system for climate tipping points that is affordable, sustainable and justified.
We’ll achieve this through a targeted deployment of low-cost sensing systems, to be tested in a multi-year field campaign, whose data can be integrated with advances in physics- and AI-driven models to push the frontiers of knowledge for climate tipping points.
By unifying these approaches, we’re aiming to confidently predict when a system will tip, what the consequences be, and how quickly that change will unfold.
Our goal: to create an early warning system for tipping points that equips the world with the information we need to build resilience and accelerate proactive climate adaptation.
Documents and links
Additional context for this programme
- Opportunity space: Scoping Our Planet [PDF]
- Programme thesis: Forecasting Tipping Points [PDF]
- Gemma + Sarah’s solicitation presentation
- Programme workshop report [PDF]
Applicant resources
- Call for proposals [PDF]
- Concept paper guidelines [PDF]
- Full proposal guidelines [PDF]
- Walkthrough for the application portal [PDF]
- How we select projects [PDF]
- Clarification questions specific to this call
About ARIA funding
If you require accessible documents, please contact clarifications@aria.org.uk
This programme is split into three technical areas (TAs). Projects that span all three TAs are strongly encouraged.
Design
Will design an affordable, sustainable and just sensing system that addresses our unmet observational needs in harsh environments
TA1
Deploy
Will deploy existing and new sensing systems in a coordinated multi-year field campaign, targeted at the Greenland Ice Sheet and Subpolar Gyre
TA2
Model
Will unlock mathematical, physical and computational methods necessary to characterise tipping point dynamics, the subsequent impacts and economic consequences of crossing tipping points
TA3
Apply for funding
Deadline for concept papers: 23 September 2024 [12:00 BST]
This solicitation seeks R&D Creators, which are individuals and teams that ARIA will fund to:
- Co-design an affordable and sustainable harmonised network of remote and in situ sensing systems, initially targeting observations of processes within the Greenland Ice Sheet and Subpolar Gyre that are crucial for understanding instabilities in these systems but are not well served by existing measurements
- Rapidly deploying sensing systems in a comprehensive, multi-year, coordinated field campaign in the Greenland Ice Sheet and Subpolar Gyre, to demonstrate new technologies and sow the seeds of long-term monitoring capability
- Develop, test and cross-validate competing modelling approaches to characterise the tipping points, the subsequent impacts and the economic consequences of crossing tipping points in Greenland Ice Sheet and Subpolar Gyre
We welcome applications from across academia, industry and national laboratories. We are keen to engage and support individuals who have not previously worked in climate science, but are excited to pivot their work to a new field.
Concept papers are designed to make the solicitation process as efficient as possible for applicants. By soliciting short concept papers (no more than three pages), ARIA reviewers are able to gauge the feasibility and relevance of the proposed project and give an initial indication of whether we think a full proposal would be competitive. We strongly encourage applicants to submit one.
We’ve also launched a teaming tool to help potential Creators form teams to collaborate and produce a proposal together. Click below to register your interest.
Meet Gemma + Sarah
Gemma Bale and Sarah Bohndiek are biomedical physicists working as co-Programme Directors. They both joined ARIA from the University of Cambridge, where Gemma continues to lead teams working on non-invasive brain monitoring, and Sarah in optical imaging technology for earlier cancer detection.
