Some climate stories begin with heatwaves, floods, or storms. This one begins with snow.
Arctik is snow excited to join SnowPI – polar snow, permafrost, and inland ice in a changing world, a new Horizon Europe project looking at one of the most important climate questions of our time: how changes in polar snow, glaciers, ice sheets, and permafrost affect the wider world.
Polar regions may feel far away, but their changes are not remote. When glaciers and ice sheets melt, sea levels rise. When permafrost thaws, roads, buildings, and pipelines in Arctic communities can become unstable. When snow patterns change, ecosystems shift, freshwater cycles are disrupted, and sectors such as fisheries, tourism, and local planning face new risks.
This is why SnowPI matters for society. Better polar science can help coastal cities plan for future sea-level rise. It can support Arctic communities facing changing ground conditions and new environmental hazards. It can help climate services provide more reliable information. It can also give policymakers stronger evidence for adaptation strategies, ecosystem management, and long-term resilience.
“The challenge is always to make the science travel. SnowPI will produce highly specialised knowledge, but its value depends on whether people can understand it, trust it, and use it. Our role is to help translate the project’s results into communication that supports awareness, dialogue, and practical uptake.” Hannah, Senior Communication Manager.
The project will bring together advanced observations, climate and earth system models, emerging technologies, and climate data. It will focus on the role of snow in shaping how glaciers, ice sheets, and permafrost respond to climate change, and how those changes create impacts across regions, ecosystems, and societies.
ARCTIK will support the project by leading communication, dissemination, and exploitation activities, and we feel right at home in the Arctic. In practice, this means helping science travel further. It also means working with the partners to make the results easier to find, understand, and ultimately use.
For ARCTIK, SnowPI is an opportunity to do what communication does best: make complex science visible, relevant, and usable. Because what happens to polar snow does not stay in the polar regions. It shapes coastlines, communities, ecosystems, and decisions across the planet.
Stay up to date
Website: www.snowpi.eu
BlueSky: @snowpi.bsky.social
LinkedIn: SnowPI
