How polar regions could help combat climate change
At the front lines of climate change, polar regions are warming up fast. This has resulted in permafrost thaw. Glaciers are melting and ice sheets are retreating faster than ever. Adapting to these changes has been challenging, as climate models rely on outdated knowledge of glaciers, ice sheets, snow, and permafrost. The EU-funded SnowPI project aims to change by providing more accurate data. Specifically, it will develop monitoring infrastructure to ensure a standardised and reliable flow of data. Overall, the project’s goal is to equip scientists and policymakers with the information they need to face the challenges posed by climate change in the polar regions.
Objectives:
The effects of present-day climate change are clearly visible in the frozen parts of our planet, where ongoing glacier melt, accelerating ice sheet retreat, permafrost thaw and declining snow extent are well documented. This is especially evident in the polar regions which are warming faster than the rest of the world which will have global and regional impacts. Here, climate adaptation remains challenging, partly due to uncertainties in climate projections arising from insufficient understanding and model representation of snow, glaciers, ice sheets, and permafrost, and their interactions with the atmosphere and ocean. Snow plays a central role in modulating the cryosphere’s response to climate change. Yet, snowpack and snow processes remain poorly understood, observed, and modelled.
SnowPI will advance our understanding of, and ability to observe, study, and project changes in the frozen terrestrial surface through the lens of snow. SnowPI will achieve this by exploiting emerging technologies, latest scientific discoveries, state-of-the-art models, in-situ and remotely sensed observations alongside its novel observations and model advances. Uniquely, SnowPI will also pursue a novel approach to developing climate information in support of adaptation strategies in the polar regions. This approach follows two converging pathways to deliver climate information in support of climate adaptation that can exploit emerging scientific and model advances more swiftly than traditional approaches. The contributions from SnowPI will include 1) new knowledge and improved capabilities to model and observe changes in snow, glaciers, ice sheets, and permafrost; and 2) state-of-the-art assessments of regional and global impacts of the changing cryosphere to support climate adaptation strategies. Combined, these results benefit a wide range of actors both within and beyond the polar regions by improving their capability to respond to the impacts of climate change.
