The University of Aberdeen has been awarded funding by the European Space Agency (ESA) to create a digital twin of the Arctic islands at the forefront of climate change.
Aberdeen will lead the development of a real-time digital replica for the Norwegian archipelago Svalbard (SvalbardDT; www.svalbarddt.org), which is said to be warming six times faster than the global average.
Lying within the Arctic Circle, Svalbard is one of the areas where the visible consequences of climate change can be seen most clearly. The drastic decline in its ice areas over recent years has serious implications for wildlife, diminishing the natural hunting grounds of polar bears and increasing competition for resources affecting other Arctic species such as walruses, seals, and seabirds.
Svalbard lies at the boundary between the warm Atlantic and the cold Polar region, therefore even a small change in temperature can have a dramatic impact.
The warming seen in recent years has shifted this boundary and now Svalbard is responding much faster anticipated to climate change but understanding this requires greater understanding of the interconnections between different environments such as glaciers, sea ice, snow and weather that cannot be done with current tools.
The creation of a digital twin - designed to behave as closely as possible to its real-world counterpart - will enable these changes to be monitored in real time and forms part of ESAs ambitious goal to create a digital twin of the Earth, called Destination Earth (https://destination-earth.eu/).
Aberdeen researchers, working in collaboration with Swansea University, Svalbard Integrated Arctic Earth Observing System (SIOS), Norwegian Research Centre (NORCE), EarthWave, University of Edinburgh, and Uppsala University will develop real-time models of Svalbard’s ice and snow in order to generate more up-to-date information on their state.
Glaciologist Dr William Harcourt from the University of Aberdeen will lead the project. He said:
“Svalbard is really important in our understanding of climate change impacts on the fragile Arctic it is a location where we have seen accelerated warming.
“The creation of its digital twin is a major step forward in understanding the changes – and importantly the speed of change – happening there.
“Having a digital twin will enable us to see what is happening in real time, from anywhere in the world.
“Unlike isolated field campaigns that reflect data at one point in time and rely on new funding and logistical support to collect, we will use satellite data and develop real-time models of Svalbard’s snow and ice. The project will develop an end-to-end workflow to ingest data from satellites into Artificial Intelligence (AI) models and produce real-time data cubes describing Svalbard's cryosphere.”
The project team develop tools for decision-making processes and to understand the impact of extreme weather events on Svalbard's ice and snow. These will be developed in direct consultation with local stakeholders in Svalbard to ensure the new tool will provide tangible impacts to communities.
European space Agency funding of 400,000 Euros (£310,000) has been allocated to the Svalbard project.