Vanilla Hunter Safety App

To develop app that enables these hunters to make scientifically informed decisions that reduce their vulnerability to environmental hazards. This tool will:

• Create a local record of climate change;
• Draw attention to problems in the community related to climate change;
• Increase cross-cultural communication among scientists and the community; and
• Support efforts of language revitalization and transfer of intergenerational knowledge.

Alaskan ice hunters gather food from the natural environment to feed their families and grow their communities. It is a dangerous and lonely job, the ice can be a treacherous place and a single wrong step can tear a family apart.

Our app aims to keep hunters safe and provide support while on the ice. We use radar ice data from Copernicus to generate geofenced hazards based on the probability of holes, pressure ridges and cracks. These are plotted on a map and by using GPS to track the hunters current location the app alerts them if they are entering an area of potential danger.

With a simple interface it allows the hunter to share new dangers through photos and map points, helping to keep others in the community safe.

We have developed a HTML5 app (for maximum device support) that enables hunters that trek on the sea-ice to:

• Inform the user to reduce vulnerability to hazards
• Enable sharing of hazard locations within the community
• Create a historical record of sea-ice changes
• Use a simple interface suitable for cold, stiff fingers
• Can handle limited internet access

Copernicus - Arctic Ocean - Sea and Ice Surface Temperature Dataset

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