Blue Insight – Using digital platforms for Arctic Ocean Science and sustainable fisheries

Climate change in the Arctic is both a potential threat and a potential opener for new opportunities in sustainable development of the region. Better access to data, methods and tools, as well as better documentation of these are needed to advance science and support decision-making on public and private sector. While local, national and regional communities in different parts of the Arctic face individual challenges due to climate change, they experience similar problems when gathering and analysing data to address these issues.

The Arctic Ocean is one of the least explored oceans on the planet. There is lack of in situ observations in large parts of this region, especially on the seafloor and in the ocean under the sea ice. This means that the research communities working with climate, weather, ice-ocean processes, and geophysical hazards have limited knowledge about the processes below the sea ice. The lack of data limits the possibility to advance research in this region. It is therefore necessary to establish observing systems for data collection in the Arctic Ocean.

Fisheries plays a key role in the economy in many Arctic countries. With climate change affecting marine ecosystems and enabling accessibility of larger ocean areas in the region, there is a strong need for improved access to data and information tailored to the fisheries industry and the public sector monitoring and regulating Arctic Fisheries. Relevant data is available from many different sources, but efficient delivery chains for compiling, integrating, and analysing these in a common system is lacking.

These diverse stakeholder groups all need access to data from different sources, such as ice and underwater ocean observing systems, satellites, operational forecasting services and climate models, which provide data with different spatial and temporal resolution, in different formats and with varying levels of documentation. Furthermore, methods and tools are needed for data processing, analysis and visualisation to integrate heterogeneous multi-source data with reference and socio-economic data to support science driven as well as sector specific applications.

Blue Insight developed by Kongsberg Discovery AS offers a robust, modular platform designed for the processing, visualization, and sharing of ocean data. The core module integrates a cloud framework, data visualization tools, and comprehensive data storage and management capabilities. In addition, the system includes a data processing framework that facilitates the reuse of data processing methodologies. To enhance Blue Insight's functionality and cater to projects of varying scales, additional modules can be seamlessly integrated into this framework. This is done by means of container and workflow engine technologies, ensuring interoperability with existing digital twin for the ocean (DTO) and other research infrastructure initiatives through OGC standards.

The presentation will give an overview of the Blue Insight system and showcase how this digital platform is used and extended within the Horizon Europe HiAOOS project and the SBEP ARCFISH project.