What happened
İklim Haber has used the 11th instalment of its climate-denial glossary to examine allegations that HAARP, the High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program, is responsible for the climate crisis.
The publication describes HAARP as a scientific facility established in Alaska in 1993 within the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Its research concerns the ionosphere, identified as the outermost atmospheric layer. The programme uses the Ionospheric Research Instrument, or IRI, an antenna installation, to study ionospheric characteristics that may affect communications and navigation.
According to İklim Haber, claims that HAARP creates weather events or changes the climate do not reflect the purpose or capability of the research. It says radio transmissions from the antennas lack the power required to influence the global climate system.
For sustainability and communications teams addressing such assertions, the immediate task is to separate the facility’s stated research remit from claims about climate causation, and to anchor discussion in the atmospheric processes identified by the source.
Why it matters
İklim Haber characterises HAARP-focused narratives as climate-change denial because, it says, they obscure the role of human activity in the climate crisis. The article draws a distinction between the ionosphere, which HAARP studies, and the troposphere close to Earth’s surface, where weather and climate processes take place.
The troposphere contains all atmospheric water vapour and 75% of atmospheric gases, the publication says. On that basis, it argues that the ionosphere is not connected to weather and climate events in the way alleged by HAARP claims.
The article links the ongoing human-caused climate crisis to continued fossil-fuel consumption and insufficiently rapid movement towards sustainable energy sources. It does not set out a regulatory measure, corporate reporting obligation or implementation deadline.
Context for climate communications
HAARP allegations are presented as part of a wider set of conspiracy theories, including assertions about artificial earthquakes and mind control. İklim Haber contrasts these allegations with the facility’s stated atmospheric research role.
Climate practitioners can use the distinction between atmospheric layers, research purpose and transmission capability when responding to related misinformation. The source’s full explainer is available from İklim Haber.
