Running cool - The ice technology helping Arctic communities adapt

The SmartICE project is providing Arctic inhabitants with real-time data on their capricious landscape

At the recent United Nations climate conference in Bonn, Dr Trevor Bell was slightly taken aback that some people think polar bears are the only thing under threat in a warming Arctic.

“It was a little bit revealing how little people know about the Arctic,” he told The Engineer. “The idea that people live in the Arctic seems to be quite a surprise to some people.”

Bell was in Bonn to collect a UN Momentum for Change Climate Solutions Award for SmartICE, a project he heads up at Newfoundland’s Memorial University. A physical geographer and field scientist, much of his working life has been spent studying the landscapes and settlements of the Arctic and the rapid changes affecting the region. While media glare tends to focus on the fate of the polar ice caps, coastal ice on the fringes of the continents impacts the lives of Arctic inhabitants more directly.