Andrew McDonald presenting his work on deep learning-based sea ice forecasting at UiT
Image:
Petter Bjørklund

Andrew McDonald presenting his work on deep learning-based sea ice forecasting at UiT

Insightful talks on deep learning-based sea ice forecasting at UiT

Andrew McDonald, a PhD student from University of Cambridge and the British Antarctic Survey, presented his work on sea ice forecasting with diffusion models, as well as the downstream applications of those forecasts‍, at Visual Intelligence in Tromsø.

Insightful talks on deep learning-based sea ice forecasting at UiT

Andrew McDonald, a PhD student from University of Cambridge and the British Antarctic Survey, presented his work on sea ice forecasting with diffusion models, as well as the downstream applications of those forecasts‍, at Visual Intelligence in Tromsø.

By Petter Bjørklund, Communications Advisor at SFI Visual Intelligence

McDonald's work is based deep learning-based sea ice forecasting within the IceNet project: a state-of-the-art sea ice prediction model.

McDonald giving his talk at UiT. Photo: Petter Bjørklund

SFI Visual Intelligence has worked on further developing the IceNet model in close collaboration with the University of Cambridge, BAS, and The Alan Turing Institute.

McDonald's talk was followed by a supplementary presentation by Visual Intelligence PhD student Lars Uebbing, who is a collaborator of McDonald and his colleagues.

Uebbing's talk focused on a recently-published study which sought to train versions of the IceNet with drastically reduced numbers of input features according to results of explainable AI, and investigate the effects on the sea ice predictions.

Uebbing presenting recently published work on the IceNet. Photo: Petter Bjørklund.

The audience got the opportunity to ask McDonald and Uebbing questions about their presented work. Thanks to both for organizing a very informative session!

Latest news

Trends in Visual Intelligence 2026

April 17, 2026

The field of Visual Intelligence is continuously transforming. Chief Research Scientist Arnt-Børre Salberg dives deeper into the current trends in the field of visual intelligence as of early 2026.

Centre-developed seismic foundation model is now open source!

April 6, 2026

The NCS model, a seismic foundation model trained on data from the Norwegian data repository for subsurface data, is now available as an open-source model, allowing anyone to download, utilize, and further develop the model.

Visual Intelligence Annual Report 2025

March 31, 2026

The Visual Intelligence Annual Report 2025, highlighting the centre's progress, activities, achieved innovations, staff, funding, and publications for 2025, is now available to read on our websites.

Visual Intelligence strengthens ties with Pioneer Centre for AI in EHR-related research

March 26, 2026

Visual Intelligence researchers contributed to the Pioneer Centre for AI workshop on Electronic Health Records research. The aim was to strengthen ties between the two centres on EHR-related research.

Nordlys: Her blir KI-studentene grillet av sin «egen» teknologi

March 24, 2026

Tre av studentene i sivilingeniør i Kunstig Intelligens ved UiT skal delta i NM i KI. Slik gikk det da de ble intervjuet ved hjelp av kunstig intelligens (News article in nordlys.no).

My Research Stay at Visual Intelligence: Rami Al-Belmpeisi

March 15, 2026

Rami Al-Belmpeisi is a PhD Research Fellow in the Visual Computing section at DTU Compute, Technical University of Denmark. He visited Visual Intelligence in Tromsø from November 2025 to February 2026.

Visual Intelligence inspires future students at the UiT Open Day

March 12, 2026

Visual Intelligence researchers came to the UiT Open Day to inform the students about UiT's study programme, and inspire them to pursue AI-related studies and career paths.

Dagsavisen: Hun lærer kunstig intelligens å forstå medisinske bilder

March 4, 2026

Elisabeth Wetzer forsker på hvordan maskiner kan lære å analysere medisinske bilder – og samtidig forstå hva legene faktisk ser etter (Norwegian news article on dagsavisen.no)

My Research Stay at Visual Intelligence: Artur Radzivil

February 12, 2026

Artur Radzivil is a PhD Research Fellow at Vilnius Gediminas Technical University. He visited Visual Intelligence in Oslo from September to November 2025.

Centre Director Robert Jenssen meets Norwegian Minister of Research and Higher Education, Sigrun Aasland

February 6, 2026

Centre Director Robert Jenssen met with Sigrun Aasland, Norwegian Minister of Research and Higher Education, alongside UiT and Aker Nscale representatives to give an update on Aker Nscale's AI Giga Factory in Narvik, Norway.