Investigating whether we can stabilize Arctic climate
We produce the evidence needed to assess whether regionally-targeted interventions could plausibly stabilize the Arctic climate, and we work to identify and engage the governments, multilateral institutions and Indigenous rights-holders this evidence serves. We bring promising candidate Arctic climate interventions to the point where the public sector can judge whether they warrant the investment required to answer the critical questions that remain.
ASI runs on a five-year mandate set by the pace and scale of Arctic risks.
The world is closing in on 1.5°C of warming.
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 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.
Arctic Risks with Global Consequences
Arctic systems approaching critical thresholds
Arctic Sea Ice Loss
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 whereas open water absorbs it. The additional warming caused by sea ice loss affects the climate system globally.
Greenland Ice Sheet Melt
The leading driver of global sea level rise, on track to add up to 0.25 meters by 2100. Sea level rise of this scale turns once-rare coastal floods into regular events for the hundreds of millions of people living near sea level. Once the tipping point is crossed, Greenland Ice Sheet loss would become self-sustaining, committing the world to several meters more sea level rise over coming centuries.
Permafrost Thaw
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.
Atlantic circulation (AMOC)
The Arctic helps drive the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, the system of currents that carries heat northward and shapes weather across the Northern Hemisphere. AMOC strength is affected by the accelerated warming in the Arctic, and multiple lines of evidence suggest the circulation is now weakening. The AMOC is a tipping point: weaken it far enough and it can shift abruptly into a much slower state that would not recover on human timescales. A full collapse would cool northwest Europe by several degrees, transforming winters and agriculture across Britain, Scandinavia, and Iceland even as the rest of the world warms. The AMOC modulates the monsoon rains that feed billions in South Asia and the Sahel, the growing seasons of northern Europe, and the height of the sea along the U.S. East Coast.
What we are not
Not a substitute for decarbonization
Climate interventions cannot replace decarbonization. Emission cuts and carbon removal remain essential.
Not a deployer
We deliver evidence, benchmarks, and modeling tools. We do not deploy, scale, or commercialize.
Not a deployment advocate
ASI does not advocate for the deployment of any intervention. We do advocate for the research needed to determine what's safe, effective, and feasible.
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