CarbonPlan

carbonplan.orgData to evaluate the regional impacts of stratospheric aerosol injection – CarbonPlanReleasing downscaled versions of stratospheric aerosol injection simulations, alongside tools to make it accessible.

Analyzing the impacts of stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI) requires climate data at finer spatial resolution than global models provide. We’re releasing an open-source, downscaled SAI dataset to support SAI impacts research and to expose uncertainties associated with downscaling itself.

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github.comGitHub - carbonplan/sai-downscaling: Downscaling pipeline for stratospheric aerosol injection climate scenariosDownscaling pipeline for stratospheric aerosol injection climate scenarios - carbonplan/sai-downscaling

We're also openly releasing the code used to produce and validate the data. github.com/carbonplan/s...

sgdeliberation.orgDownscaling SRM Scenarios: Considerations For Incorporating Good Governance in SRM Modeling and AssessmentThis white paper presents a case study exploring how governance principles can be put into practice during SRM research, specifically in the context of a project to create an accessible, global datase...

We hope this enables researchers across the globe to explore the regional impacts that matter to them, provides a benchmark for independent downscaling efforts, and lays the foundation for more systematic research into how downscaling itself introduces uncertainty into understanding of SAI impacts.

We worked with partners at Cornell University, @sgdeliberation.bsky.social, and @degrees.ngo to design and execute an SAI downscaling project informed by, and accessible to, researchers worldwide. www.sgdeliberation.org/dsg-publicat...

source.coopSAI Downscaling: Daily 0.25° Stratospheric Aerosol Injection Climate Projections · CarbonPlan · Source CooperativeDownscaled climate model output for Stratospheric Aerosol Injection (SAI) scenarios covering 2 GCMs, 2 downscaling methods, 4 scenarios and multiple ensemble members and variables, totaling ~21TB.

The result applies two downscaling methods to output from two climate models simulating idealized SAI and no-SAI scenarios. source.coop/carbonplan/s...

As interest in SAI grows so does the urgency for research supporting public scrutiny and informed decision-making. We need to understand the disparate ways SAI could affect people, plants, animals, and ecosystems. That analysis requires climate data at a finer spatial resolution than GCMs provide.

That’s where downscaling comes in. Downscaling translates coarse-resolution climate model output into a finer-resolution form that can be used by impact modelers. But it’s not a straightforward process. There are many ways to downscale data, and small methodological choices can change your results.

Recently, there’s been a marked uptick in activity around solar radiation modification — a family of approaches that aims to reduce global warming by reflecting sunlight back into space. Much of that activity, including growing private investment, centers on one method in particular, SAI.

carbonplan.orgHow averaging out the weather affects enhanced weathering estimates – CarbonPlanExploring meteorological forcing decisions in EW models.

Do enhanced weathering models give different answers if they capture individual rain events instead of monthly or annual averages? In our latest Modeling Bytes installment, we explore this question. carbonplan.org/research/mod...

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Our takeaway: if you need conservative carbon removal estimates or an accurate picture of alkalinity loss pathways, the time resolution of the meteorological forcings likely matters, and it’s worth testing the sensitivity in your model setup before landing one way or the other.

There’s more work to do here. Our work points toward three follow-up research questions that we think would help provide more confident guidance on picking the right time resolution for meteorological forcing.

carbonplan.orgHow averaging out the weather affects enhanced weathering estimates – CarbonPlanExploring meteorological forcing decisions in EW models.

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Across eight example sites, coarser meteorological forcing made soils wetter and more CO₂-rich, even though total water supply and demand didn’t change. That boosted rock weathering, but only by 10-20 percent.

More interestingly, changes in rock weathering didn’t map neatly onto changes in carbon removal. Some sites saw a small bump in weathering and a bigger bump in carbon removal. Others got similar removal estimates for different reasons — like more weathering canceled out by more alkalinity loss.

carbonplan.orgHow averaging out the weather affects enhanced weathering estimates – CarbonPlanExploring meteorological forcing decisions in EW models.

We thought this decision could be consequential. Many processes that control enhanced weathering respond non-linearly to weather extremes, and coarse meteorological data average them out.

In our model setup, this didn’t end up spelling the difference between estimating a lot of carbon removal and none at all. But the effects warrant attention because they are geochemically complex, and they hinge on the structure of the model itself.

apply.workable.comResearch Associate - CarbonPlanCarbonPlan is a nonprofit organization using science and data to accelerate climate action. Our team analyzes the design and implementation of climate programs across the public and private sector, an...

29 July

We’re hiring a Research Associate to expand our work on climate risk. If you’re passionate about ensuring public access to high-quality climate risk data, and informing just and scientifically-grounded adaptation policy, please apply.

19 Aug

Update: Applications for the Research Associate role will close on Tuesday, August 25. Please apply before then for consideration. While we typically keep our roles open until filled, we’ve already received more than 600 applications for this position, and have limited capacity for review.

19 Aug

If you’ve already applied, thank you! All applications will receive a reply. Given the small size of our team & the fact that we consider every application, this may take time. We respectfully request that you not contact us to inquire about your app status or about applying after the close date.

eartharxiv.orgMoving fast without breaking things: The benefits of preprinting for CDR research

6 Aug

Carbon removal research is under pressure to build an evidence base quickly. Meeting that pressure requires coordination, and we think preprints can help. Our latest piece (a preprint) argues that preprinting improves both the speed and quality of scientific coordination.

6 Aug

We also show that preprinting is starting to take off in carbon removal, but widespread adoption still requires a cultural shift. If you’re a carbon removal researcher, preprinting your work can keep that momentum going, and help boost coordination in a field that acutely needs it.

carbonplan.orgThe 2026 fire season has officially begun for California forest offset projects – CarbonPlanWe are tracking fires in two offset projects enrolled in California’s forest carbon program. These are the first two projects to burn in 2026.

24 July

Two forest offset projects participating in California’s cap-and-trade program are burning — one in Oregon and the other in Washington.

carbonplan.orgFires and forest offsets – CarbonPlanMonitor of forest fires affecting improved forest management carbon offset projects.

24 July

We’ll be tracking these fires, along with any others that develop, as the North American fire season continues.

carbonplan.orgHow surface roughness scaling can mislead enhanced weathering predictions – CarbonPlanCorrecting a mis-interpreted equation in EW models.

7 May

In enhanced weathering models, more rock surface area typically means faster weathering and more carbon removal. But some models use a mistaken surface area equation that could inflate carbon removal by up to two orders of magnitude. Our latest post explains the mistake and how to move forward.

7 May

This mistake is a reminder that we still have a lot to learn about simulating enhanced weathering. We’re still in the learning phase, and mistakes are inevitable. For now, while methods and norms are rapidly developing, model results should be understood as provisional.

carbonplan.orgIntroducing Modeling Bytes – CarbonPlanA new series examining enhanced weathering modeling decisions.

7 May

This post is part of our “modeling bytes” series, digging into in-the-weeds modeling decisions in enhanced weathering. Read more about what to expect from the series below. carbonplan.org/research/mod...

carbonplan.orgWelcoming Isometric and Cercarbono to OffsetsDB – CarbonPlanWe’ve added two new offset registries to OffsetsDB.

6 May

OffsetsDB just got bigger. Today, we added two new offset registries — Isometric and Cercarbono — to our open database that standardizes information about offset projects and their credits. Now researchers can access data from seven registries, which cover the vast majority of the carbon market.

carbonplan.orgDesigning web maps for our highest-resolution dataset yet – CarbonPlanWe reached for open source tools and cloud-native formats to make climate risk data easily accessible on the web.

27 Apr

For Open Climate Risk, we created our highest-resolution dataset yet. To make it explorable and downloadable by anyone with a browser, we turned to cloud-native formats and open source tools. We wrote about our new web mapping stack: carbonplan.org/blog/mapping...

23 Apr

We’ve officially opened the search for CarbonPlan’s next Executive Director, and would love your help sharing the position profile. Refer candidates or apply by May 29 for priority consideration: www.goodcitizen.com/executive-se...

carbonplan.orgDesigning a data pipeline for our highest-resolution dataset yet – CarbonPlanWe reached for new tools to build a flexible and scalable data pipeline.

To build Open Climate Risk, and its 30 m raster wildfire risk dataset, we needed a data processing pipeline that could scale alongside our developing science methodology. We wrote about the challenges, and our solutions, in a new blog post.

The harder problem was knowing which regions actually completed. Zarr has no built-in way to track this, and Spot Instances can be terminated at any time.

We used @earthmover.io's Icechunk, which brings git-like versioning to Zarr. Each VM records its completion as a commit, so the dataset’s own history becomes the record of what’s done. If some region fails, just rerun the pipeline: only the missing regions get reprocessed.

carbonplan.orgDesigning a data pipeline for our highest-resolution dataset yet – CarbonPlanWe reached for new tools to build a flexible and scalable data pipeline.

We knew that working at this scale with Xarray and Dask would bring well-known challenges. In response, we reached for newer tools in the Pangeo ecosystem and took an unconventional approach to writing Zarr stores.

To start, we broke the dataset into spatial regions and processed each one independently on cheap, cloud VMs (Spot Instances), which kept things manageable and made it easy to scale.

files.carbonplan.orgfiles.carbonplan.org

We examined 74 projects that capture and burn methane from pig manure in China, and found a consistent problem: many projects ignore the financial benefits of generating energy from captured methane. files.carbonplan.org/Pig-Manure-A...

We also found more basic inconsistencies within project paperwork, raising serious questions about both the reliability of the data and the quality-control processes run by registries and third-party verifiers. carbonplan.org/blog/pig-man...

carbonplan.orgOffset project paperwork should be internally consistent. It’s not. – CarbonPlanInternal inconsistencies in offset project paperwork highlight the often lax standards of the carbon market.

dialogue.earthDoubts cast over pig farm methane credits in ChinaOne-third of projects may have gone ahead even without the credit revenue, new research reveals

For a deeper investigation into swine manure offset projects, see Christian Shepherd’s article today in Dialogue Earth: dialogue.earth/en/climate/d...

files.carbonplan.orgfiles.carbonplan.org

When you account for that financial benefit, we find nearly a third of associated offset credits are non-additional (5.95M of 19.2M) — the reductions would have happened anyway, even without selling carbon offsets.

carbonplan.orgQuestions about Lithos’ first ERW credit issuance – CarbonPlanWe were surprised by the high removal rates claimed in a recent credit issuance to the ERW company Lithos. This post explains what questions the issuance raised for us, and what needs to change to get...

20 Apr

Lithos’s first enhanced weathering credits claim a surprisingly high amount of gross carbon removal that we think deserves scrutiny. We tried to figure out what could make these high numbers possible, but we were limited by the available data and left with more questions than answers.

20 Apr

If this carbon removal outcome is real, we need public evidence to understand why. If it’s not, then this is a case of over-issuance that should be corrected. Either way, there’s a lesson here that’s impossible to learn with the relevant data behind closed doors.

2 Apr

We developed two new tools for mapping Zarr data: zarr-layer renders a wide range of datasets with little or no modification. And topozarr adds multiscale overviews and web-friendly chunking to datasets while maintaining projection and resolution. carbonplan.org/blog/zarr-la...

CarbonPlan reposted

CDRXIV

@cdrxiv.org

30 Mar

Institutions submitting to CDRXIV can build up a substantial body of work over time — but there hasn’t been an easy way to share that work as a collection. Channels fix that, making an institution’s submissions viewable in one place. We’re launching this new feature with three founding channels.

files.carbonplan.orgfiles.carbonplan.org

13 Mar

NCAR is the backbone of Earth system science in the US and a global leader in open climate research. It directly supports our mission. Alongside a wide range of peers in the scientific research community, we submitted a letter to NSF strongly opposing any efforts to dismantle or restructure NCAR.

carbonplan.orgLet’s reframe the CDR policy conversation – CarbonPlanCDR policies must align with a coherent vision of a net-negative world.

26 Feb

Our new report, written in collaboration with the Carbon Removal Standards Initiative, presents a framework for policymakers to connect the dots between future net negativity and the practical decisions that underpin public investments in early-stage technologies. carbonplan.org/blog/cdr-pol...

26 Feb

Advocates of public funding for carbon dioxide removal (CDR) technologies promise that it will unlock the ability to reduce global temperatures. But that promise will only hold if CDR policymaking aligns with a coherent vision of a net-negative future.