NCSA, Google work together in Alaska as part of Permafrost Discovery Gateway

(Press-News.org) Earlier this summer, members of the National Center for Supercomputing Applications traveled to Alaska as part of their continued work with the Permafrost Discovery Gateway, a project led by the Woodwell Climate Research Center using artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) in tracking Arctic permafrost thaw.

NCSA’s Associate Director for Software Kenton McHenry and Research Software Engineer Todd Nicholson visited Fairbanks, Alaska along with 12 Google.org fellows to see first hand the melting permafrost and the impacts to those that live there.

“I have seen the artifacts of melting permafrost for years through the satellite images we work with, yet I was shocked to see things firsthand,” said McHenry. “What should be flat terrain was filled with 6-feet-deep ravines, the borders of these ice-wedge polygons. The trees at 45 or greater degree angles. The sinkholes in the University of Fairbanks parking lot.”

Seeing the permafrost research tunnel was a great experience. It shows just how significant permafrost is to the Arctic, how much it affects the land and the environment. Hearing from people about how permafrost thaw affects them in their day-to-day life lets you know how important the topic is.

Todd Nicholson, NCSA Research Software Engineer Funded by a $5 million grant from Google.org, the Permafrost Discover Gateway, with further Google.org fellowship support, is developing and expanding a new, open-access resource that will use satellite data and AI technology to make it possible to track Arctic permafrost thaw regularly for the first time ever. This potentially game-changing resource for climate science will utilize advances in AI/ML technology to streamline the data analysis process and make it easier to rapidly identify patterns and trends in permafrost thaw datasets that will be essential to informing climate mitigation and adaptation strategies for city planners.

“We are excited to be working with Google.org to improve and extend the tools and data pipelines initially developed for the Permafrost Discovery Gateway to new use cases,” said NCSA Lead Research Software Engineer Luigi Marini after the award was announced. “Closing the time gap between remote sensing data products becoming available and permafrost data products being published, such as the pan-Arctic sub-meter scale ice-wedge polygon dataset developed by Chandi Witharana and team, will hopefully help scientists and stakeholders better understand permafrost thawing at the pan-Arctic scale. We also hope to generalize some of the technologies and tools being developed so that more scientists can leverage this work to develop new permafrost-related data pipelines.”

But NCSA’s trip didn’t just center around software and science. The Arctic adventure included underground tours, an ice hotel, team activities and more.

“On our way to the permafrost cave we stopped by to see a portion of the Trans-Alaska oil pipeline,” McHenry said. “A few of us were amazed that it was actually built on top of permafrost, and to prevent its foundation from melting, it had thousands of passive refrigeration units along it to pump the winter cold into the ground to help prevent the permafrost from thawing in the summer.”

During the same period, the project hosted 12 Google software engineers who assisted in the Arctic research. Through a program partnering with research projects like the Permafrost Discovery Gateway, Google staff apply for opportunities to work on scientific research as a change of pace from their normal work.

“Several of the fellows told us how much they really enjoyed this experience working within science and would like more opportunities to do so,” McHenry said.

ABOUT NCSA

The National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign provides supercomputing, expertise and advanced digital resources for the nation’s science enterprise. At NCSA, University of Illinois faculty, staff, students and collaborators from around the globe use innovative resources to address research challenges for the benefit of science and society. NCSA has been assisting many of the world’s industry giants for over 35 years by bringing industry, researchers and students together to solve grand challenges at rapid speed and scale.

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