Agents and the Arctic: The Case for Increased Use of Agent-Based Modeling to Study Permafrost

Abstract

By 2050, approximately 3.6 million Arctic inhabitants will be affected by damage to infrastructure caused by permafrost thaw1. In total, nearly 70% of the infrastructure in the arctic will be impacted1. In addition, approximately $15.3 trillion in defense, security and economic assets will require assessment to ensure that national interests can still be served. While a significant amount of research has been conducted over the past three decades there remain significant challenges to ensuring resilience across local, regional and national scales. Achieving such resiliency requires an adaptive and innovative approach to address the challenges facing the Arctic region, one that engages the co-production of knowledge as well as modern computational tools. Currently, field research remains a focus of arctic research, leading to both tangible and intangible burdens on often resource-limited remoted villages and communities. These burdens are shared by researchers and funding agencies who must spend a disproportionate amount of effort and fiscal resources to support these activities. Field research is infeasible in the age of COVID-19, and the future of field research must also be reevaluated, as it is unlikely that we will return to a pre-COVID-19 baseline. Agent-Based Modeling (ABM) is a computational simulation method that is part of the broader suite of so- Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning methods. On its own, ABM could alleviate many of the burdens placed on both researchers and remote communities in situ, enable a wider set of inputs from more diverse stakeholders and providing more precise guidance to decision and policy makers through the use of futures forecasting. The use of ABM has several benefits, including (1) the mitigation of contentious issues surrounding field work in and near Indigenous communities, (2) better leveraging data collected to date to enable a smaller and more intentional version of field research, and (3) generating a range of scenarios to not only test hypotheses but also explore the outcomes of different policy and intervention decisions. Focusing field work in this way may help to protect Arctic communities while helping to advance science for the Nation as whole and more rapidly empower appropriate policy responses.