Arctic infrastructure was built on frozen ground – drones and digital twins can help spot the permafrost thaw coming

From the air, Wainwright, Alaska, looks like a perfectly stable band of homes and roads between the Chukchi Sea and a vast, flat tundra. But just below the surface, the frozen ground on which this town was built contains large bodies of ice. Along the eroding coastal bluffs,…

A view of Wainwright, Alaska, which sits on low-lying coastal terrain underlain by permafrost. Ming Xiao From the air, Wainwright, Alaska, looks like a perfectly stable band of homes and roads between the Chukchi Sea and a vast, flat tundra. But just below the surface, the…