Ice Flows Game — Researchers Partner With Game Developers To Illustrate Mechanisms Of Antarctic Ice Sheet Response To Climate Change
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In order to better explain to children and laypeople the complex mechanisms related to global warming and the Antarctic Ice Sheet, researchers have partnered with game developers to create a new game that illustrates the way that the Antarctic Ice Sheet will be affected by anthropogenic climate change, according to an email sent to CleanTechnica.
The new interactive game — the Ice Flows Game — was officially launched only a few days ago at the SCAR (Scientific Committee for Antarctic Research) Open Science Conference in Kuala Lumpur.
The email provides more: “The game is built on a simple representation of how ice flows in Antarctica and how it responds to changes in the environment — through changes in snowfall and ocean temperature. It allows players to impose climatic changes to control the extent of the ice sheet to guide penguins to fish; if they get it wrong, the penguin may meet its doom in the jaws of a leopard seal. The aim is to promote understanding of the complexity of the ice sheet system by enabling the player to carry out their own ice sheet model experiments, much like the scientists working on the research. The game has a number of levels representing how different parts of the Antarctic will respond to climate change.”
The game was actually developed as part of a research project on the Filchner Ice Shelf system in Antarctica. This utilized field measurements — with numerical modeling of ice flow, ocean currents, and the atmosphere — in order to better understand future predictions.
The game itself was developed by Anne Le Brocq of the University of Exeter, in partnership with the game developers Inhouse Visuals and Questionable Quality as well as with the British Antarctic Survey, the leader of the wider research project. Researchers from “the UK Met Office, National Oceanography Centre, University College London, the University of Oxford, and the Alfred Wegner Institute in Germany” also took part. Funding came from the Natural Environment Research Council.
The aforementioned Dr Anne Le Brocq, a Senior Lecturer in Physical Geography at the University of Exeter, commented: “The response of the Antarctic Ice Sheet to a changing climate is very complex and, as a result, is difficult to communicate in a clear and understandable way. The use of a game helps not only to visualize the system, but also to provide an immersive environment for the player to fully understand the behaviour of the ice sheet and how it responds to changes in the environment. Hopefully it’s fun to play too!”
Out of all the actions that are needed to even attempt to address climate change, I admit that the development of a children’s game wasn’t at the front of my mind. Perhaps it’ll have some value, though — whether someone is exposed to something at a young age or not seems to have a lot to do with what they find to be believable.
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