Aberdeen researchers will create a digital twin of Arctic islands to produce and monitor real-time information on how such a critical area is being impacted by climate change.

Following funding from the European Space Agency (ESA), Aberdeen will lead the development of a real-time digital replica for the Norwegian archipelago Svalbard, which is said to be warming six times faster than the global average.

Svalbard is one of the areas where the visible consequences of climate change can be seen most clearly. It lies at the boundary between the warm Atlantic and 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 than 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 the digital twin, called SvalbardDT, and designed to behave as closely as possible to its real-word counterpart, will enable changes to be monitored in real time. It also forms part of ESA’s goal to create a digital twin of the Earth, called Destination Earth.

Aberdeen researchers, working in collaboration with the University of Edinburgh, Swansea University, Uppsala University, the Norwegian Research Centre (NORCE), the Svalbard Integrated Arctic Earth Observing System (SIOS), and EarthWave will develop real-time models of Svalbard’s ice and snow in order to generate more up-to-date information on their state.

“Svalbard is really important in our understanding of climate change impacts on the fragile Arctic as it is a location where we have seen accelerated warming,” said glaciologist Dr. William Harcourt, who’s from the University of Aberdeen and will lead the project.

“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.

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“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.”

400,00 Euros, or 310,000 Pounds, has been allocated by the European Space Agency towards the Svalbard project.