Under anthropogenic climate change, the Arctic is warming up to 4 times more rapidly than the global average. This rapid warming impacts all facets of the Arctic system: altering seasonal weather patterns, intensifying the hydrologic cycle and storm events, reshaping ecosystem dynamics, and melting the land and sea ice that blankets much of the polar landscape. These changes do not remain confined to the Arctic. Through a range of climate feedbacks, the Arctic both responds to and amplifies global change– meaning that what happens in the Arctic ultimately affects us all, no matter what corner of the planet we call home.

As a graduate student at the University of Washington, my research focuses on understanding how the Arctic Ocean is responding to a warming climate. My work contributes to the NASA Salinity and Stratification at the Sea Ice Edge (SASSIE) mission, which aims to better describe how small changes in salinity at the ocean’s surface impact sea ice formation in the polar autumn. SASSIE involved a month-long research cruise in the western Arctic Ocean, in which I assisted with data collection in the marginal ice zone– the dynamic boundary region between open water and dense sea ice coverage. Data collected on cruises such as SASSIE is key to documenting the continually evolving state of the Arctic Ocean, as well as validating satellite data of the region, which allows us to better predict long-term trends.

Conducting science at sea has profoundly shaped both my development as a scientist and my sense of purpose in this work. Seeing what’s at stake in the effort to address climate change motivates not only my research, but also my desire to communicate this work beyond academic audiences. Scientific outreach allows me to share the importance of these places with others, and I have been fortunate to pursue outreach alongside my research during my time at UW.

With support from the UW Program on Climate Change Climate Solution Fund, I have had the opportunity to collaborate with artist Jill Pelto on an art-science outreach project focused on the SASSIE mission. Jill uses watercolors to depict environmental change, and by incorporating data directly into her work, she communicates the scientific mechanisms behind climate change and the emotional weight of its impacts. Along with Dr. Marie Zahn of NASA JPL, I worked with Jill over the course of several months to develop a collection of art that leverages visual storytelling to share SASSIE science with a broad audience.

The four watercolor artworks, together with the data embedded within them, tell a cohesive story about climate change in the Arctic Ocean. The pieces highlight long-term sea ice loss, rising ocean temperatures, and intensifying wave action as ice-free conditions expand– changes that threaten ways of life in Alaskan coastal communities. The paintings also depict how the SASSIE team collected measurements using a diverse suite of ocean instrumentation deployed along the sea ice edge. Together, the collection integrates satellite observations with in situ measurements to reveal important small and large-scale processes that are critical for understanding how this region is rapidly transforming. 

We debuted the art collection through a public seminar and reception at the UW Ocean Sciences Building in October 2025. The seminar was standing room only, welcoming more than 70 in-person participants and over 30 online. The reception consisted of an art exhibition as well as hands-on exhibits of SASSIE instrumentation and outreach activities. The event fostered meaningful conversations, with many attendees engaging directly with SASSIE scientists and Jill to discuss both the science and the creative process behind the exhibit. It was moving to see the art pieces serve as a catalyst for conversations about the pressing environmental issues facing the Arctic, the effort to understand and protect this region and its inhabitants, and actionable reasons for hope in the face of climate change. 

Through this experience, I have come to understand art as a powerful medium for transforming scientific results into compelling and accessible stories. Within academia, tools such as graphs, figures, papers, and presentations are effective for communicating results to other scientists; however, these tools reach their limits when we attempt to broaden our audience and engage the public. This challenge is especially acute in Earth science. Research on the ocean, atmosphere, and cryosphere is inseparable from ecological and human consequences, and as climate change accelerates, it is increasingly urgent to communicate the lived impacts of environmental change. This experience has shown me that art can convey climate change as a holistic and human story– and in doing so, it has reshaped how I think about my role as a scientist and science communicator.

In the long term, the art will reside within the Ocean Sciences Building at UW, creating a visible display that will exist in the broader community for years to come. I am deeply grateful to the generous donors of the UW PCC Climate Solutions Fund for making this art collection possible, and for supporting an event that allowed us to share the science of the Arctic in a new and meaningful way.

By Carlyn Schmidgall.  Carlyn is a fourth-year PhD student in the School of Oceanography who studies Arctic Ocean circulation using observations and models, with the goal of understanding how sub-Arctic water masses influence the balance of heat and freshwater in the Arctic. As a recipient of a DOE Computational Science Graduate Fellowship, she is also a visiting student at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. Outside of her academic pursuits, she is deeply involved in outreach and public engagement in science, including leading art-science initiatives and working as a naturalist in Washington and Alaska.