{"id":66,"date":"2025-10-08T15:25:40","date_gmt":"2025-10-08T19:25:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.clarku.edu\/magazine\/?p=66"},"modified":"2025-11-03T11:47:13","modified_gmt":"2025-11-03T16:47:13","slug":"land-sea-sky-and-ai","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.clarku.edu\/magazine\/land-sea-sky-and-ai\/","title":{"rendered":"Land, sea, sky \u2026 and AI"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Land, sea, sky\u2026 and AI<\/h2>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

A Clark-produced forest \u2018Risk Map.\u2019 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A pioneer in geospatial technology, Clark offers a revealing view of our world and the work needed to save\u00a0it\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Meredith Woodward King <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In classes on environmental change in the Arctic, Geography Professor Karen Frey often shares the photos she has taken over the past two decades on polar research expeditions: a lonely walrus atop a patch of shrinking ice and stark coastlands spotted by thawing permafrost. The images capture the findings of a tectonic scientific study several years ago reporting that since 1979 the Arctic has warmed nearly four times faster than the rest of the Earth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe year I started at Clark, in 2007, there was a huge drop in sea- ice extent, and even though we\u2019ve had a lot of variability, we have never gone back to where we were prior to 2007,\u201d says Frey, a lead chapter author of NOAA\u2019s annual Arctic Report Card. \u201cMany scientists predict that by 2040, the Arctic could experience nearly no sea ice during summer months.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before 1978, there was no practical way to measure vast amounts of sea ice from the ground, and no reliable way to do so from above. But on Oct. 24, 1978, NASA and NOAA launched the Nimbus-7 satellite carrying the Scanning Multichannel Microwave Radiometer. Unlike earlier satellite technology, the remote sensing instrument could gather data on sea surface temperature, wind speed, and other ocean dynamics in all types of weather.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like many of her colleagues studying global environmental and climate change, Frey\u2019s research relies on remote sensing data collected by Earth observation satellites.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m also interested in how algae, the base of the food chain, is going to change with climate warming and sea-ice decline in the Arctic and in the Arctic Ocean,\u201d says Frey, who regularly brings students to the Arctic on research trips.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A five-year National Science Foundation grant is funding her research as part of an international science collaboration seeking to understand such ecological changes in the Pacific Arctic region, and how that will have rippling effects across the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cA huge part of my research is linking what we measure in the field with what we see from space with satellites,\u201d Frey says. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Florencia
Professor Florencia Sangermano conducting research in the Amazon<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Clark\u2019s legacy\u2014and future\u2014of geospatial research <\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Frey joins a long line of earth, environmental, and sustainability researchers at Clark who have deployed geospatial analytics in their work. In the 1980s, Graduate School of Geography Professor Ron Eastman launched Clark Labs and developed what became TerrSet, a geospatial software system for monitoring and modeling the Earth, which became widely used by academic and nonprofit researchers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n