Written evidence submitted by Planet Labs
Planet Labs
Planet is a leading provider of global, daily satellite imagery and geospatial solutions. Planet is driven by a mission to image the world every day, and make change visible, accessible and actionable. Founded in 2010 by three NASA scientists, Planet designs, builds, and operates the largest Earth observation fleet of imaging satellites. Planet provides mission-critical data, advanced insights, and software solutions to over 880 customers, comprising the world’s leading agriculture, forestry, intelligence, education and finance companies and government agencies, enabling users to simply and effectively derive unique value from satellite imagery.
The Arctic environment
The Arctic and its adjacent Boreal Zone comprise a huge area that is extremely important for the Earth’s climate, while highly vulnerable and sensitive at the same time. The Arctic is melting 4x quicker than the global average[1] (some parts like Svalbard even 7x quicker), facing challenges for its 5 million residents. Around 55% of the infrastructure is located on a permafrost and 3.6 million residents live at risk of permafrost thaw.[2] At the same time, climate change in the Arctic is an indicator of global warming. When we add the geolocation importance of the region for security and energy, utilising science and technology to tackle these challenges should be the very top priority for policy makers.
The importance of monitoring the Arctic monitoring and the challenges we face
Monitoring of the Arctic as a climate change hotspot is of key importance globally, as well as for the Arctic’s inhabitants. At the same time, the region has special characteristics that constitute challenges for monitoring:
● It is remote making it difficult to reach many parts of the Arctic
● It is largely disconnected due to low population density
● It has a harsh climate and weather conditions, hampering efforts to measure the conditions on ground
Satellite monitoring as a solution
For the reasons stated above, satellite monitoring is one of the best technologies that can provide regular, large-scale monitoring in the Arctic. Frequent, high resolution Earth Observation data provide information and knowledge for systematic, long-term observations and spot new changes, enabling action before, during and after an event. Satellite imagery is not only a key pillar for understanding this vast region’s impact on the global climate, it enables monitoring change in real time, making it actionable and creating global transparency.
Satellite data providers, such as Planet, provide daily high-resolution imagery that has proven to be extremely valuable for efforts geared towards the protection, research and restoration of the Arctic. Planet’s data greatly complements publicly available data sources, providing imagery of higher spatial and temporal resolution.
Satellite monitoring use cases
Earth Observation has a variety of use cases, such as:
● Permafrost monitoring - including assessing changes and progression of thawing
● Land and sea ice monitoring
● Fresh water monitoring - including fluctuations in Arctic lakes and rivers
● Monitoring human activities - including mining, logging, shipping and agriculture
● Assessing Arctic and Boreal vegetation - including vitality, biomass and season length
● Wildfire and disaster response support
● Coastal zones monitoring
● Supporting indigenous communities - with near-daily status information in adapting their lifestyles to the drastically changing conditions
The value of Earth Observation data is crucial for the scientific community and decision makers, playing a fundamental role for protection and restoration of the Arctic. Below are two case studies that illustrate this.
Case study: Norilsk oil spill
The Norilsk oil spill illustrates how Earth Observation data can be harnessed to monitor environmental changes in the Arctic in close to near-real time.
Figure 1: PlanetScope images of the Norilsk oil spill: Chronology of an environmental catastrophe in the Arctic (2020)
May 29, 2020: a diesel fuel tank failed due to lack of maintenance. The company owning the tank did not report the incident for two days. This image from May 30 shows how the oil has spread throughout the river.
June 4, 2020: disaster response teams had installed booms to contain the oil. However, drifting ice broke the booms and the spill reached Lake Pyasino, threatening to reach the Arctic Ocean. Oil spread throughout the river.
June 13, 2020: the image shows containers placed along the river for collecting the contaminated water. The total area contaminated exceeds 350 km2.
Case study: Tracking snow line altitude in the Hunza basin
Researchers at Aberystwyth University have used Earth Observation data to monitor how glaciers are responding to climate change.
Spatial patterns in snowline altitudes during the month of October are represented with a blue (lower SLAs) to red (higher SLAs) scale: Hunza Shimshal valley.
The separation of fresh snow, exposed glacier ice and debris-covered ice on glacier surfaces is needed for hydrologic applications and for understanding the response of glaciers to climate variability. The above shows an automated, decision-based image classification algorithm implemented in Python to separate snow, ice and debris surfaces on glaciers and to extract glacier snowlines at monthly and annual time steps and regional scales. The method was applied in the Hunza basin in the Karakoram and the Trishuli basin in eastern Himalaya.[3]
What more could the UK do to improve or increase its contribution to Arctic science?
Earth Observation is a critical tool in tackling climate change globally and should be implemented and utilised much more widely by the UK government. The UK is the nearest neighbour of the Arctic and shares a common interest in its environment, security and prosperity. Satellite imagery and services can effectively support the objectives of the UK’s new Arctic policy framework, 'Looking North: the UK and the Arctic', both for scientific research and consequently, operational decision making.
April 2023