Building capability through Antarctic collaboration

The collaboration combines New Zealand’s seasoned research expertise with the UAE’s strengths in engineering and autonomous technologies to develop new tools that improve understanding and prediction of how climate change in Antarctica affects weather patterns, oceans and coastal communities.

Partnering with the UAE’s Khalifa University supports New Zealand’s Antarctic research goals while building national capability in advanced engineering and autonomous systems, technologies with broad potential to improve productivity and resilience across key industries.

It will also enhance insight into Antarctic climate change, helping businesses and decision makers plan for long term environmental and economic impacts.

The partnership will initially support two projects delivered through the Antarctic Science Platform. These projects will focus on:

• Storm dynamics influence on sea ice formation – Improved forecasting tools will enhance operational planning and build New Zealand’s capability in predictive environmental modelling, integrating high resolution modelling with new observation techniques will improve understanding of how storm dynamics influence sea ice formation.
• Tracking changes to ice shelve using Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) – Long-range AUVs and other remote technology will be developed and deployed to measure heat content and water mass exchange on the continental ice shelf. Designed to operate in extreme conditions, these systems will expand New Zealand’s capability in remote sensing technologies while helping fill key data gaps related to iceshelf melt and ocean circulation.

Read the Beehive press release:

NZ-UAE partnership boosts advanced tech capability(external link) — Beehive.govt.nz