Plans are set to be approved for projects worth up to £50m to dim sunlight across the UK. The outdoor experiments are part of an ongoing effort to combat runaway climate change, which rapidly accelerates global warming.

The projects, which are expected to be confirmed within weeks, will be operated by the Advance Research and Invention Agency (Aria). According to GB News, the plans will make the UK one of the world's biggest funders of geoengineering research.

Aria's programme director, Professor Mark Synes, said there will be "small controlled outdoor experiments on particular approaches." The technology hopes to reflect sunlight back into space to temporarily stop rising temperatures.

The experiments could include injecting aerosols into the atmosphere or brightening clouds to reflect sunlight. Stratospheric Aerosol Injection involves tiny particles being released into the stratosphere from airplanes and refracting the light back into space.

This announcement comes as the National Environment Research Council (NERC) revealed on April 3 that it will invest £10 million of new funding to study these solar radiation management schemes (SRM). 

Professor Synes said: "We will be announcing who we have given funding to in a few weeks and when we do so we will be making clear when any outdoor experiments might be taking place.

"One of the missing pieces in this debate was physical data from the real world. Models can only tell us so much.

"Everything we do is going to be safe by design. We’re absolutely committed to responsible research, including responsible outdoor research.

"We have strong requirements around the length of time experiments can run for and their reversibility and we won’t be funding the release of any toxic substances to the environment."

2024 was the hottest year on record as average temperatures exceeded the threshold of 1.5C above pre-industrial temperatures. Meanwhile, January this year was also the warmest on record as average global temperatures hit 13.23C.

Scientists are becoming increasingly worried about increasing greenhouses gases, like carbon dioxide, that are being thrown into the atmosphere by human activities. They say the collapse of ocean currents and giant ice sheets are becoming a looming threat.

Professor Symes said: "The uncomfortable truth is that our current warming trajectory makes a number of such tipping points distinctly possible over the next century. This has driven increased interest in approaches that might actively cool the world in a short timeframe in order to avoid those tipping points."

Another potential approach is Marine Cloud Brightening. This method involves boats releasing sea-salt particles into the sky to increase clouds' ability to reflecct sunlight.

However, all of these methods fall under the branch of geoengineering, which is the deliberate and large-scale manipulation of the Earth's climate system. It is controversial among scientists with some arguing the techniques could have serious consequences on things like food production.