IceNet – Using AI To Forecast Arctic Sea Ice Changes

IceNet – Using AI To Forecast Arctic Sea Ice Changes

A new AI tool, dubbed IceNet, could lead to improved early-warning systems to protect Arctic wildlife and costal communities.

Data scientist at the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) have published a new study in the science journal Nature Communications. The study shows that the BAS have managed to build a new AI system that can forecast Arctic sea change in a much more efficient way.

Sea ice is a vast layer of frozen water, it appears around the North Pole in the Arctic as well as around the South Pole in the Southern Ocean. It expands in the winter and shrinks in the summer naturally. Sea ice is very hard to predict because it has very complex interactions with the atmosphere above and the ocean below. Existing methods for forecasting sea ice are based on physics, so scientist write the laws of physics in computer code and use that to predict into the future. In contrast this new system, called IceNet, is based on artificial intelligence techniques called deep learning which underpin technologies like facial recognition, self-driving cars etc. The difference in this new study is that scientist at the BAS have taken one of these algorithms and made it learn how to forecast Arctic sea ice based on satellite data from the past four decades. The result is that IceNet outperformed the leading physics based models in these long range sea ice forecasts at two months and beyond, while also running thousands of times faster. IceNet could run on a laptop, while previous physics based methods would have to run for hours on a supercomputer to produce the same forecasts. The context of this is that the Arctic is a region on the front line of global warming. It has warmed at a rate of about two to three times that of the global average. This has a significant effect on the amount of sea ice in the ocean. This summer the sea ice was double the size that it was compared to forty years ago. This sudden and unprecedented decline has dramatic implications for the local wildlife and human inhabitant of the Arctic, particularly the indigenous communities who have a rich and intricate culture thats intertwined with sea ice that dates back potentially up to 40 thousand years.

BAS is hoping that the advances in sea ice forecasting ability brought forwards in their study means that people can start to zoom into the IceNet forecast and use that to help conservation workers, as well as local communities to build their resilience and adapt to future changes in Arctic sea ice.

Find out more at Britishantarticsurvey.ac.uk

Check out other events & case stories

Corporate – Startup Collaboration for a Sustainable Future

Corporate - Startup Collaboration for a Sustainable Future

During Oslo Innovation Week, we invite corporates and startups to discuss ways to collaborate to co-develop sustainable solutions

 

Where: Online
When: 28 September, 11:30 – 13:30 CET
Cost: Free
 
 

About

Startup Norway aims to bring the startups and corporates to a roundtable format of discussion to highlight the challenges and opportunities that come with collaborating and co-developing products and services for a more sustainable world.

Consumers will always go for the better product, with sustainability being the added value to it. So, the challenge is for companies to find a way to combine sustainability with high quality delivery, without prioritizing one over the other.

 

CORPORATE STRENGTHS

Companies have the size and distribution power on their end, but innovation tends to be treated with cautiousness.

 

STARTUP STRENGTHS

Startups have seed & flexibility in how to address a challenge and how to solve it, but lack access to a large testing ground.

 

COLLABORATION

Collaboration is critical for efficient & profitable sustainability practices, but can these two sides collaborate over the culture gap in their operational model?

How can corporates and startups align on the innovation front without competing and instead, create a win-win solution?

Agenda

1.INTRODUCTION

Startup Norway welcomes you to a very exciting roundtable of corporates and startups

11:30 – 11:40

 

2.ROUNDTABLE DISCUSSION

A moderated free-flowing discussion between our corporate and startup speakers

11:40 – 12:30

 

3.CHALLENGES & OPPORTUNITIES

A roundup of the challenges and opportunities in startup – corporate collaborations

12:30 – 12:45

4.AUDIENCE QUESTIONS

Time to flip-the-script and let our roundtable participants answer all of your burning questions

12:45 – 13:15

 

5.CONCLUDING REMARKS

Startup Norway closes off the event by concluding the discussion of our roundtable participants

13:15 – 13:30

Corporate speakers

Melissa Ciardullo

IKEA, Project Leader for Circular Product Development

 
 

Illai Gescheit

Siemens Energy Ventures, Partner

 

Philip Hansteen

Equinor, Leader of the Equinor & Techstars Energy Accelerator

Startup speakers

Thommy Tellefsen

Leid, CEO

 
 

Ingvar Aune

Sirken, Co-Founder

Hasse Storebakken

Aqua Alarm, CEO & Co-Founder

THE EVENT IS PART OF OSLO INNOVATION WEEK 2021

Contact person

 

Verineia Codrean

Head of Sustainability
 

Check out other events & case stories

Orca! The world’s best bet against climate change?

Orca! The world’s best bet against climate change?

Today, the Swiss company Climeworks formally opened the air purification plant Orca in Iceland. It has only been sixteen months since the construction of the plant began in May last year. Orca is the world’s first and largest climate-positive direct air capture and storage plant.

The plant captures 4,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere each year and disposes of them underground. This new technology from Climeworks is one of the most impactful ways to tackle climate change that exists today.

The launch event was opened by former President of Iceland, Mr. Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson and followed by Prime Minister Katrín Jakobsdóttir, Dagur B Eggertsson, Mayor of Reykjavik and a number of other speakers. Watch the full launch event below:

 

For more information about this project please visit Climeworks.com/orca.

Check out other events & case stories