Students hack the future at PolarRES-PISCO Hackathon
20 November 2025
The PolarRES and PISCO projects joined forces to host an intensive one-week Hackathon at the Hungarian Meteorological Service (HungaroMet) in Budapest, where Early Career Researchers gathered to work with the latest polar climate data. Over several days, the participants improved their technical skills with guidance from experienced instructors and collaborated on research challenges central to understanding a rapidly changing Arctic and Antarctic.
Introductions to begin the week
The week opened with a simple ice-breaker session. One by one, the participants introduced themselves and their backgrounds. They came from fields that included glaciology, oceanography, signal processing. Some wanted practice with observational datasets. Others were stepping into polar research for the first time, drawn by the chance to explore regions that are warming faster than almost anywhere else on Earth.
The organisers then introduced the two projects anchoring the Hackathon. PolarRES was introduced by Project Coordinator Priscilla Mooney (NORCE), who joined online. The project, she explained, aims to improve regional climate information for impact assessments in the Polar Regions. This work has produced unprecedented high-resolution climate projections supported by structured storylines.
PISCO was introduced by Ruth Mottram (DMI). She highlighted the project’s commitment to open science. The ESA-funded project focuses on model evaluation, sea level rise and essential climate variables, and plays a key role in supporting the interpretation of satellite observations.
After these introductions, and following a lunch generously provided by HungaroMet, participants received a hands-on introduction to Climate Data Operators (CDO) from organiser Oskar Landgren (METNO). These tools are essential for working with climate and meteorological datasets, as they help to automate workflows and carry out complex transformations. They can be thought of as a Swiss Army knife for climate data analysis.
The four project groups
The Hackathon consisted of four collaborative project groups, each exploring a different part of the polar climate system.
Sea ice influences on ice sheet surface mass balance
Students in this group investigated how sea ice conditions affect ice sheet processes. They focused on the interactions between ocean, atmosphere and ice that shape snowfall, melt and overall surface mass balance in the polar regions.
Cloudy with a chance of Sensitivity: Exploring cloud-climate interactions in PolarRES
This project concentrated on the behaviour of mixed-phase clouds, which contain both ice crystals and water droplets. These clouds are common in polar regions and play a significant role in regulating surface temperatures. They are also difficult for models to represent.
Polar Patterns: Spot the Difference
This project group focused on structural and scenario-driven uncertainties in climate model outputs, particularly for the Arctic. The region has warmed nearly four times faster than the global average since 1979. While CMIP6 is a major step forward in global climate modelling, it still shows substantial uncertainty at high latitudes.
By comparing five regional models and three global models across two storylines and several climate variables, the team analysed spatial patterns in climate change response. They found that global model differences were largest over land and sea ice, while regional models reduced these differences over land.
The Great Greenland Melt-Off: Which climate model best matches observed melt across Greenland’s drainage basins?
This group set out to identify which models best match observed melt across Greenland. The Greenland Ice Sheet is a large contributor to global sea level rise, and models often differ sharply in how they represent melt processes. Students compared various models, including ICON, HCLIM, WRF and RACMO, with observational measurements from Automatic Weather Stations (AWS) and melt information derived from the ASCAT satellite.
Their findings showed that models struggle with heat exchange processes and mass loss. One suggestion was that warm Atlantic air masses cool as they rise over the steep Greenland topography, a process that models do not always reproduce accurately.
Concluding the Hackathon
On the final day, the students presented their findings. The once tentative introductions had grown into fluent discussions of patterns, biases, outliers and methodological choices. What united the groups was a collective recognition of the importance of high-resolution climate information, open science and comparative modelling. The hackathon demonstrated that although uncertainty is an unavoidable element of polar research, it can be mapped, interrogated and, to some extent, understood.
One conclusion stood out. The next generation of climate scientists is motivated and ready to continue advancing polar research.
We thank all participants and instructors for their dedication and contributions. We hope the students leave with new skills, confidence and connections that will support their future careers.
There will be another hackathon next year, although it will not be organised by PolarRES, which is nearing its conclusion. For now, the work continues, both in the data and in the minds of the students who spent a week in Budapest learning how to read the distant future from the coldest corners of the Earth.
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