Scientists are set to build a pioneering polar observatory this year, which will deliver critical insights into the impacts of climate change in some of the most remote and under-sampled regions of the Arctic. 

The state-of-the-art automated and mobile observatory will bridge critical air-ice observational gaps and lay the groundwork for an early warning system for ice sheet melt. The project team includes scientists from the National Centre for Atmospheric Science (NCAS), CIRES at the University of Colorado Boulder, Menapia Ltd, and Polar Field Services. 

By leveraging advancements in renewable energy, remote-sensing and in-situ instruments, automated aerial robotics, satellite communications, and machine learning, the team will design and build a brand new Arctic-hardened and self-sustaining modular observatory in 2025.

Michael Gallagher, a CIRES researcher and project team member, explains how the new observatory “in a box” will bring bigger impacts from a modest setup: “We are shooting for the data quality and quantity of a large research station but with a fraction of the footprint and resource requirements, and the deployability akin to that of a much smaller weather station.”