Start of the Citizen Science Project ‘UndercoverEisAgenten’
Citizen Scientists from Germany and Canada to gather Data on Permafrost Thawing in the Arctic
[01. July 2021]
The Arctic is changing faster than average due to global warming. While some alarming effects, such as melting glaciers and sea ice, can be observed directly, most of the permafrost’s melting takes place deep below the surface. However, since the permafrost stores huge quantities of carbon, which is released in the form of carbon dioxide and methane when it thaws, there is a danger that continued thawing will further worsen global warming. In order to collect reliable, up-to-date information on permafrost thawing, the joint project UndercoverEisAgenten was launched today.
Coordinated by the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI), together with the German Aerospace Center (DLR) and the Heidelberg Institute for Geoinformation Technology (HeiGIT), citizens in Germany and Canada will be invited to help researchers collect data on visible landscape disturbances in the Canadian Arctic, so as to gain insights into the extent and speed of permafrost thawing. To do so, school pupils in Aklavik (Inuvik Region, Northwest Territories, Canada) and researchers will collect high-resolution aerial images from drones, as well as satellite images of the Earth’s surface in the Arctic. In close collaboration with three German schools (in Jena, Heidelberg and Berlin), they will then process this image data and divide it into small mapping tasks (‘micro tasks’), which can then be completed by school pupils and researchers – who can even do so using a smartphone. Their contributions will result in a unique reference dataset that will be of enormous value in terms of improving the quality of remote sensing-based monitoring and forecasts for permafrost degradation.
The project will not only improve the availability of vital data, but will also include citizens in permafrost research and the scientific discourse. By talking to their peers in the Canadian Arctic, school pupils in Germany will gain a more direct understanding of the consequences of climate change. Later the approach will be extended to educational settings outside school, the interested public, and the scientific community.
UndercoverEisAgenten’ is one of 15 new citizen science projects funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). All 15 will run until the end of 2024, with the aim of improving the content of and methodologies for collaboration between citizens and researchers, and of finding answers to societal challenges. The AWI will be responsible for coordinating this joint project and organising the field campaigns in the Canadian Arctic (Mackenzie Delta), and will also spearhead the scientific evaluation of the data collected. The Citizen Science department at the DLR Institute of Data Science in Jena, on the other hand, will offer valuable know-how in the areas of IT-based strategies, utilisation of publicly available data, innovative educational concepts, and developing knowledge- and data-management tools. HeiGIT will provide the mapping applications that will allow citizen scientists to identify and map changes in the Earth’s surface in remote-sensing images, which are a sign of thawing permafrost. The web platform ‘UndercoverEisAgenten’ will make scientific information available and offer public access to the results of the mapping project.
Projects like this are essential in order to record and quantify the rapid and diverse effects of global warming on permafrost. In this context, in addition to the standard scientific methods, we also urgently need innovative ways and means that will allow us to collect data more quickly and comprehensively. Here, the top priority is always on handling the collected data more carefully, transparently and openly.