At Southern California’s Harvey Mudd College, seniors studying computer science or mathematics have the opportunity to take part in clinic projects with a multitude of companies. Thrilled to say they selected our nonprofit this year!

The Ice911 clinic team is made up of five students: Matthew, Cade, Gabby, Parker and Mike, one advisor, Professor Andrew Bernoff, and two liaisons, our CEO and founder Dr. Leslie Field and Subarna Bhattacharyya, of Climformatics. The liaisons presented goals for the project, and the students came up with a plan. Enjoy their findings below:

*From left to right: Gabby, Cade, Matthew, Mike, Parker*

Quick Introductions

Hey y’all, I’m Mike! I’m a computer science and mathematics major, and I’m thrilled to work with Ice911 this year. The effects of global climate change are something that will profoundly affect my generation, and I’m really excited to be part of an effort to restore earth. Working with Ice911 is the perfect capstone to my college experience, and I can’t wait to share what we’ve been working on.

Hi, I’m Matthew! I care deeply about safeguarding the Earth’s climate and believe curtailing greenhouse gas emissions should be among the world’s top priorities. I’m part of this clinic project because we need to buy more time to do so. I study mathematics, computer science, and economics. When not working on some crazy academic project, I run a DnD game with friends.

Hello all! My name is Cade, and I’m absolutely stoked to have the opportunity to work with Ice911 on this clinic project. Many times, I have found myself frustrated with institutions for prioritizing convenience over sustainability and failing to promote action. I’m very thankful to HMC for giving our team the chance to both practically apply our skills to a worthwhile cause and possibly mitigate immediate threats to our planet.

Hey, I’m Gabby, and I’m a senior studying mathematics and computer science. I love all water sports—my parents put me on skis at two, I joined a swim team at the age of four and caught my first wave when I was eight—and I’ve experienced first-hand the effects of climate change both on the slopes and in the ocean. I’m really excited to be working with Ice911 to slow down this warming of the earth and to be part of such a great team!

Hey, I’m Parker, and I’m also a senior studying mathematics and computer science. I’m super excited to be working on this team! I’m very passionate about the climate crisis and have always wanted the opportunity to help in any way I can. Aside from my academic interests, I also stay active and play sports like baseball, soccer, volleyball and basically anything else where I can be outside. This is part of the reason I’m so passionate about this issue because I love being outside and it gives me a desire to really take care of our planet and help maintain the health of the environment.

Motivation

Earlier this semester we were presented with the opportunity to help make a positive global climate impact through a project working with Ice911 Research. From the start, our team was very motivated and took an intense interest in this project mainly because of the positive change that our work could bring about. Each one of the team members listed above has the desire to help ease the climate crisis, and we all understand that this is one of the most pressing issues that our planet faces today. Aside from this, we felt that we could help in some technical ways that were definitely in the scope of our project. Specifically, one of the main areas of concern is being able to appropriately represent data in a way that is accessible to a general audience.

We understand that in order for our work to have real impact and drive positive change, we need to show our findings in a way that relates to people, especially policymakers. The team agreed that the main area of focus is using data to generate visualizations that are appealing and informative to a general audience. We believe we have the access, ability, and passion to do this along with various other goals, and we can help Ice911 on its way to making a positive global impact.

What we’ve done so far

Visualizing the effects of climate interventions is a difficult challenge. Traditionally, climate data is stored in .nc (or NetCDF) files, which aren’t necessarily compatible with state-of-the-art visualization software.

The standard way to view NetCDF files is via a tool called Panoply, developed by the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies. It’s fairly limited. Panoply is unable to display more than one variable of interest on the same geographic plot and doesn’t allow users to change many stylistic aspects of a dataset’s presentation. It’s a utilitarian tool, meant to provide specialists with a quick visual overview of their data. As a result, the visualizations it produces aren’t easy for a layperson to understand.

The team started to look into alternatives. After familiarizing ourselves with the NetCDF file format, we began to explore the possibility of making visualizations in ArcGIS. So far, the results are promising. We’ve found a way to directly convert NetCDF files into raster layers without having to first convert them into an alternative file format—an operation that would be costly, given the size of Ice911’s data. This should allow us to efficiently produce elegant visualizations.

What we plan to do

Going forward, we plan to explore the potential effects that Ice911’s technology may have on reversing climate change. As a group, we want to make visualizations of the possible effects in areas outside of the Arctic in order to see if intervention would have an effect on the frequency or intensity of extreme weather and natural disasters. Ice911 could use the visualizations to publicize the technology, to gain support and to get one step closer to taking action.

On top of that, we aim to draft a policy brief for lawmakers and create a web app where readers like you can interact with our visualizations, toggling between predictions of what Earth would be like with and without increasing the albedo of the ice. You may think we’ve bitten off more than we can chew, but we are happy to work for such an important cause.

If your college has a clinic program and you’d like to work with the Ice911 team, please contact us for more information.