Arctic’s need for finer ICT to grow in time

The Finnish Meteorological Institute (FMI) focuses on improving the smooth and safe functioning of the society by using emerging information and communication technologies. This expertise will be needed in the future at more and more high latitudes, FMI surmised in a press release.

Climate change is clearly taking place faster in the Arctic region than anywhere else. In addition to climate change, the frequency of travelling, shipping, and utilisation of natural resources will also expand in the region, increasing the demands for both observational data on the Arctic environment and services.

Finland is one of the world's northern-most societies with permanent settlements. So, challenging natural conditions are familiar to Finns. In order to enable the society to run its operations efficiently, despite the snow and freezing temperature in the high north, there is a need for weather observations, research, and services to enable and help disparate actors to prepare for weather fluctuations.

The chairmanship of the Arctic Council has been transferred from the US to Finland in May. The main agendas of the Finnish chairmanship are environmental protection, meteorological cooperation, communication solutions, and education.

Safe and sustainable operations in the Arctic region require close meteorological cooperation. The Finnish Meteorological Institute already monitors and produces various kinds of observation data from both Finland and elsewhere in the Arctic region. “In order to be prepared for the changing conditions in the Arctic, we need better understanding and long-term monitoring of the weather, climate, ice, and sea conditions,” read the FMI press release.

A prerequisite for this is that the weather, ice, sea and climate observations are developed through international cooperation. This will help conduct research into the changing Arctic conditions and develop services to fulfil the needs of Arctic activities.

“The chairmanship of the Arctic Council offers us an excellent opportunity to build networks and foundations based on permanent international cooperation,” explained FMI Director General Juhani Damski.