Weather-driven hazards, such as floods, storms, landslides and severe winter weather, account for 90% of the world's natural disasters, causing significant impacts to people, infrastructure and natural environments. Across Northern Europe, these hazards are becoming more pervasive in a changing climate. As they do, and as other 'emergent' hazards, such as wildfires and droughts, start to affect parts of Northern Europe where they have not before, transport links and supply chains, ecosystems, agricultural yields and forestry are increasingly being impacted. These impacts are intrinsically linked to resilience and coping capacities, with their severity greatest in the most vulnerable and remote regions, including people, economies and communities, the infrastructure that supports and connects them, and the goods and services they produce. Recent floods and landslides in remote regions across Northern Europe have been related to the same weather systems, however our understanding of the timing and impacts from these interconnected events is poorly understood, highlighting a critical need to better understand, and find novel solutions to, the emerging risks of weather-driven natural hazards in remote regions. The EMERGE project, formed by a new multi-hazard focused international partnership between the University of Strathclyde, the Icelandic Meteorological Office, and the Norwegian Water Resources and Energy Directorate, in collaboration with British Geological Society, Newcastle University, and the Scottish Environment Protection Agency, brings together experts to explore weather-driven hazards - primarily extreme rainfall, landslides and floods - and their emergent and compounding risks across Northern Europe's remote and vulnerable regions. EMERGE has a focus of the UK, Norway and Iceland, aimed at bringing together researchers that work in similar climatic zones to foster collaboration and create novel, cutting-edge science that is beneficial to both the UK and its near neighbours. EMERGE's activities will address critical research questions relating to: (1) the emergence and compounding risks of weather-driven natural hazards in remote regions; (2) the observation, prediction and monitoring of these hazards across the UK, Iceland and Norway; and (3) regional research priorities and resilience-building strategies. These will be explored through a series of expert workshops and 'living labs' in Glasgow, Oslo and Reykjavik, supported by wider dissemination activities, that will create a forum that fosters open scientific collaboration, knowledge brokering and information sharing, and identifies needs and opportunities. Our remote communities and environments must undergo significant change if they are to successfully transition to being climate resilient. The grand challenge presented by climate change, combined with the disproportionate impacts of natural hazards in remote regions, demands a new international approach to society's interaction with the environment in order to build a more equitable and sustainable future. The new partnerships formed by EMERGE will develop world-leading research to produce critical new scientific knowledge and support the development of solutions that build climate resilience in some of our most vulnerable regions.

Carbon is one of the essential elements required for life to exist, alongside energy and liquid water. In contrast to other parts of the Earth's biosphere, cycling of carbon compounds beneath glaciers and ice sheets is poorly understood, since these environments were believed to be devoid of life until recently. Significant populations of micro-organisms have recently been found beneath ice masses (Sharp et al., 1999; Skidmore et al., 2000; Foght et al., 2004). Evidence shows that, as in other watery environments on Earth, these sub-ice microbes are able to process a variety of carbon forms over a range of conditions, producing greenhouse gases, such as CO2 and CH4 (Skidmore et al., 2000). Almost nothing is known about 1) the range of carbon compounds available to microbes beneath ice, 2) the degree to which they can be used as food by microbes and 3) the rates of utilisation and the full spectrum of products (e.g. gases). This information is important for understanding the global carbon cycle on Earth. The fate of large amounts of organic carbon during the advance of the glaciers over the boreal forest during the last ice age (Van Campo et al., 1993), for example, is unknown and is likely to depend fundamentally on microbial processes in sub-ice environments. Current models of Earth's global carbon cycle assume this carbon is 'lost' from the Earth's system (Adarns et al., 1990; Van Campo et al., 1993; Francois et al., 1999). The possibility that it is used by subglacial microbes and converted to CO2 and CH4 has not been considered. This may have potential for explaining variations in Earth's atmospheric greenhouse gas composition over the last 2 million years. Sub-glacial environments lacking a modern carbon supply (e.g. trees, microbial cells) may represent ideal model systems for icy habitats on other terrestrial planets (e.g. Mars and Jupiter moons; Clifford, 1987; Pathare et al. 1998; Kivelson et al. 2000), and may be used to help determine whether life is possible in these more extreme systems.

Icy ecosystems (e.g. glacier, snow, sea ice, frozen lakes) remain the least explored sector of the cold biosphere, yet are now known to be inhabited by significant populations of microorganisms. They are the closest models we have for habitats on other planets and may have been refuges for life during periods of extreme cold in Earth's history. Because of the extreme environmental conditions present (cold, desiccation, high radiation, high pressure and physical abrasion by meltwater/ice) few sensors are developed for these environments and most investigations to date have involved hand-sampling and laboratory analysis of samples. These rudimentary sampling methods yield only limited information and are inappropriate for investigating the more remote deep sub-surface environments, such as lakes beneath the Antarctic Ice Sheet. Significant innovation in the field of chemical/biosensor development is essential for controls on microbial activity in icy environments to be understood, and in order to engage fully in the future exploration of Antarctic subglacial lakes and sub-ice water bodies on other planets (e.g. Mars, Jovian moons). The Principle Investigator has extensive experience in sensor deployment and biogeochemical monitoring in extreme cold environments, including the glacial field site, and will organize and lead a core team of experts to develop the first generation of chemical/biosensors for high resolution monitoring of icy ecosystems. The sensor testing site is a glacier, Engabreen (Norway), where environmental stresses common to a range of icy ecosystems are present. A unique aspect of this site is the exploitation of the Svartisen subglacial laboratory, where tunnels bored in bedrock beneath the glacier enable relatively straight-forward emplacement of sensors in the high stress subsurface environment. This work will provide a platform for the future development of a larger research group focused on biogeochemical sensing of the cryosphere and the acquisition of further funding from a variety of sources.