Showing 102 items
12 November, 2025 by Josephine Anselin
Ocean-driven melting of floating ice shelves is currently the main process controlling Antarctica’s contribution to sea level rise. However, despite major advances in the study of ice shelf-ocean interaction over…Read more on Ocean mixing and heat transport beneath Antarctic ice shelves
28 October, 2025 by Tasnuva Khan
Modern day benthic community composition and distribution in the Southern Ocean are influenced by a variety of environmental and evolutionary factors across different spatial scales. Depth, temperature, salinity, and sea…16 July, 2025
This thesis addresses several key questions aimed at understanding host-microbial and host-helminth dynamics within Southern Ocean penguin populations. The overall thesis aim is to characterise microbial and helminth diversity in…11 June, 2025 by Christopher Auckland
Antarctic Bottom Water (AABW) is the densest oceanic water mass and plays a pivotal role in regulating the overturning within the Southern Ocean and beyond. Over the past three decades…5 March, 2025 by Nicholas Barrett
Climate change is impacting marine ecosystems worldwide, presenting a significant threat to biodiversity. In the Southern Ocean, organisms are facing increasing challenges due to warming, ocean acidification, reduced sea-ice cover,…11 February, 2025
Ice cores provide an un-matched high-resolution archive into paleoclimate reconstruction that other environmental archives (e.g. coral, sediment cores, and tree rings) do not. Limited research has focussed on terrestrial organic…6 February, 2025 by Patrick Keith
The Southern Ocean is experiencing major environmental and ecological changes which could drastically alter communities and impact ecosystem functioning. We still have a poor understanding of the structure of Southern…Read more on Drivers of Southern Ocean food web structure and impacts of environmental change
5 February, 2025 by Rebecca Peel
This thesis details the development and application of a pyrolysis-gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (Py-GC/MS) method for the quantification of microplastic pollution in terrestrial samples. Initial analysis of plastic standards using Py-GC/MS…7 November, 2024 by Millie Bond
Emission of NOx and HONO from the snowpack can have a significant impact on the oxidising capacity of the boundary layer in the polar regions. This thesis presents work that…Read more on The mysteries of reactive nitrogen species above polar snow
9 October, 2024 by Maximilian Lowe
This thesis utilises inverse and forward modelling of geophysical data to investigate the subglacial geology and influences on geothermal heat flow in northern Victoria Land and in Wilkes Subglacial Basin,…15 August, 2024
The Southern Ocean is a unique and extreme environment that is changing fast due to climate change, with shifts recorded from the surface to deep-sea ecosystems. By evolving in such…15 August, 2024 by Ronan Agnew
Seismic observations of glacier beds are key to understanding processes of basal slip and incorporating these processes into ice sheet models, which in turn inform predictions of global sea level…4 January, 2024
The Amundsen Sea has some of the highest thinning rates of ice shelves in Antarctica. This imbalance is caused by changes in ocean melting, induced by warm Circumpolar Deep Water…14 March, 2023 by Lily Bentley
In the dynamic marine environment, highly mobile predators are expected to select profitable foraging areas, especially when provisioning young in addition to meeting their own energy needs. Knowing how and…Read more on The sea is the limit: Foraging ecology of breeding Antarctic Procellariiformes
19 July, 2022
This thesis presents new computational methods to analyse both short and long-term effects of temperature increase on biological systems. First, we consider the problem of acclimation of an organism to…Read more on Cpmoutational tools for metabolic modeling and gene duplication analysis
5 July, 2022 by Danielle Buss
Baleen whales are highly mobile marine predators that are still recovering from unsustainable exploitation between the 18th and 20th centuries. There remain considerable gaps in our understanding of the migration,…4 May, 2022 by Ben Robinson
The shallow Antarctic benthos (10 -100 m depth) are predicted to undergo drastic changes, particularly with respect to the iceberg scour disturbance regimes. With this is in mind, the field…Read more on Disturbance ecology of the shallow Antarctic Benthos
10 March, 2022 by Matthew Chadwick
Environmental conditions during Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 5e (130-116 ka) represent an important ‘process analogue’ for understanding the climatic responses to present and future anthropogenic warming. Our understanding of the…Read more on Reconstructing Antarctic winter sea-ice extent during Marine Isotope Stage 5e
8 March, 2022 by Alexander Lozinski
Geomagnetically trapped protons forming Earth's proton radiation belt pose a hazard to orbiting spacecraft. In particular, solar cells are prone to degradation caused by non-ionising collisions with protons in the…Read more on Modelling the exposure of satellites in medium Earth orbit to proton belt radiation
1 March, 2022 by Sam Coffin
The polar regions represent two of the most extreme environments on Earth, with sub-zero temperatures, sustained light in the summer and complete darkness in the winter. Marine diatoms are prevalent…14 April, 2021 by Robert Blackwell
Marine autonomous vehicles (MAVs) carrying active acoustic sensors(echosounders) are being used for ecosystem research, but high data volumes are presenting challenges for data storage, processing and communication. One of the…Read more on Real-time reporting of marine ecosystem metrics from active acoustic sensors
14 April, 2021 by Kayleigh Jones
Sexual segregation occurs in a diverse array of taxa in the animal kingdom and has important ecological implications. Several hypotheses have been proposed to explain sexual segregation in adults, including…Read more on Growing their separate ways: the ontogeny of sexual segregation in Antarctic fur seals
18 November, 2020
The wintertime atmospheric circulation in the southern hemisphere is characterised by a zonally asymmetric, spiral-like pattern. This includes a strong jet over the Indian Ocean region, which bifurcates downstream into…Read more on The dynamics of the South Pacific split jet in austral winter
15 October, 2020 by Ella Gilbert
Observational data and high resolution (Read more on Atmospheric drivers of surface melting on the Larsen C ice shelf, Antarctic Peninsula
1 September, 2020 by Christine McKenna
Over the past few decades, Arctic sea-ice extent has declined, while there has been an apparent increase in severe winter weather across some mid-latitude regions. This has led to much…25 August, 2020 by Felipe Simoes
The Scotia Arc, comprising southern South America, South Georgia and the South Orkney Islands and the Antarctic Peninsula, is home to a range of understudied insect species which are constantly…Read more on Ecophysiology, Morphology and Phylogeography of Insects in the Scotia Arc.
18 March, 2020 by Hannah Cubaynes
By the mid-twentieth century, the majority of great whale species were threatened with extinction, following centuries of commercial whaling. Since the implementation of a moratorium on commercial whaling in 1985…3 March, 2020 by Rebecca Vignols
In this project, a combination of field measurements, remote sensing data and regional climate model outputs were used to study recent and projected future changes in Northern Fennoscandian snow cover.…Read more on Understanding past and future changes in northern Fennoscandian snow cover
3 March, 2020 by George Foot
Symbioses between plants and fungi are ubiquitous in terrestrial ecosystems, in which they play key roles in plant nutrient acquisition and the cycling of elements. The plant host provides carbon…Read more on Liverwort-Fungal Associations: Novel Symbioses In Polar Regions?
20 November, 2019 by Harriet Clewlow
This thesis sought to elucidate the mechanisms driving the large-scale population changes observed in Pygoscelis penguins in the Western Antarctic Peninsula (WAP)/Scotia Sea region since the 1970s, with particular focus…20 November, 2019 by Thomas Hudson, Thomas Hudson
Volcanoes and glaciers can both pose a significant threat to life and property. Volcanoes can erupt suddenly, without warning, causing injury, death and damage to property. Glaciers generally present a…Read more on Investigating volcanic and glacial processes using microseismicity
19 November, 2019
The Hindu-Kush Karakoram Himalaya (HKKH) contains the third largest quantity of snow and ice in the world, after the Polar Regions. Meltwater from this snow and ice feeds many of…Read more on Wind and temperature in a glacierised Himalyan valley, and their controlling mechanisms
24 July, 2019 by Erik Mackie
The Southern Ocean is a climatically important region, and its large-scale circulation influences climate and climate change globally. Through the uptake of carbon and heat from the atmosphere, and through…3 July, 2019 by Michael McCarthy, Michael McCarthy
Supraglacial debris thickness is a key control on the surface energy balance of debris-covered glaciers, which are common in temperate mountain ranges around the world. As such, it is an…Read more on Quantifying supraglacial debris thickness at local to regional scales
23 February, 2019 by Luca Telesca
Environmental change is a major threat to marine ecosystems worldwide. Understanding the key biological processes and environmental factors mediating spatial and temporal species’ responses to habitat alterations underpins our ability…14 February, 2019 by Peter Ward
The potential impact of global warming on plankton populations and processes in the Southern Ocean is cause for concern. Greatest attention has concentrated on Antarctic krill, a keystone macroplankton species…Read more on Mesozooplankton of the Scotia Sea: present, past and future
12 February, 2019 by Cecilia Liszka
The biological carbon pump (BCP) exerts an important control on climate, exporting organic carbon from the ocean surface to interior. Zooplankton are a key component of the BCP and may…22 January, 2019
Post-seismic deformation and glacial isostatic adjustment are two processes by which the Earth deforms viscoelastically. In both cases, the details of the deformation depend on the rheological structure of the…1 December, 2018 by Marta Misiak
Polar regions are subjected to rapid climate change, with increased air temperatures and precipitation being predicted during future decades. Rising temperatures and precipitation will have an effect on saprotrophic soil…Read more on Soil fungal responses to warming in polar regions
28 November, 2018
Lanternfishes (Myctophidae) dominate fish diversity and biomass within the mesopelagic ocean between 200-1000m deep. In the face of exploitation and climate change there is a need to predict their current…Read more on Ecological niches and geographic distributions of lanternfishes
8 August, 2018 by Jennifer Brown
Five penguin species breed in Antarctica: emperors, Adélies, chinstraps, gentoos and macaronis. These are important Antarctic mid-trophic level predators and under predicted climate change are believed threatened. Accurate monitoring of…5 July, 2018 by Tejaswi Yarra
Mollusc shells are unique adaptations that serve to protect the organisms that make them, and are a defining feature of the phylum. However the molecular underpinnings of shell forming processes…Read more on Transcriptional profiling of shell calcification in bivalves
5 July, 2018
This thesis presents the first high-resolution palaeoceanographic study of environmental changes in the Amundsen Sea sector of the West Antarctic continental margin during the Late Quaternary. This part of the…5 July, 2018 by Ashleigh Massam
Three deep ice cores, obtained from Fletcher Promontory, Berkner Island, and James Ross Island across the Antarctic Peninsula (AP) and Weddell Sea region, preserve a climate record that can yield…1 May, 2018
El Niño Southern Oscillation events have global implications both climatologically and socio-economically. One such climatological teleconnection is manifested in the Amundsen Sea region (ASR). The Amundsen sea low (ASL) is…1 April, 2018
The genomic revolution has provided researchers with the opportunity to address broadreaching questions in ecology, evolution and conservation with greater power and precision than ever before. It is nowpossible to…1 January, 2017
Each austral summer large baleen whales migrate into the Southern Ocean to feed on krill. The melting of sea ice leads to algal blooms which allow rapid growth and development…24 August, 2016 by Tobias Kersten
Modern society relies substantially on satellite technology as it is involved in vital services like telecommunication services, Earth observation, navigation, and many more. There are more than 1000 operational satellites…13 October, 2015 by Daniel Bannister
South Georgia is a small and mountainous island, located in the remote Southern Ocean. The island’s subantarctic climate is controlled by its location and steep orography; with 19 peaks over…Read more on Föhn winds on South Georgia and their impact on regional climate
7 September, 2015 by James Jordan
Physical processes in Antarctica and the Southern Ocean are of great importance to the global climate system. This thesis considers two such processes, namely ice-ocean interaction in ice shelf basal…Read more on Modelling ice-ocean interactions in and around ice shelves
6 July, 2015
The numerous glaciers on the Antarctic Peninsula are highly sensitive to environmental changes, with potential to make a significant contribution to sea-level rise, and yet they have been distinctly under…29 August, 2014
Pine Island Glacier is one of the fastest and most dynamic glaciers in West Antarctica. The stability of the glacier may thus have profound impact on the overall stability of…18 August, 2014
The volatilisation of iodine from the ocean and release to the atmosphere in the ice-covered polar regions has been studied. Laboratory experiments involving sea ice- and ice associated- diatoms have…15 August, 2014
Observations suggest that properties of Antarctic Intermediate Water (AAIW) are changing. An understanding of how changes in the ocean may interact with the atmosphere is crucial for understanding how Earth’s…Read more on Global climate impacts from changes in Antarctic Intermediate Water
1 May, 2014 by Elaine Fitzcharles
Correct species identification is fundamental to all areas of biology, but particularly the policy related areas of conservation and fisheries management. To enable guidelines to be developed for environmental management…1 January, 2014 by Thomas Millgate
Ice shelves play an important role in the mass balance of an ice sheet, by providing a link between the ocean and ice. Melting at the base of an ice…