Antarctica InSync

What Antarctica InSync does

National Antarctic programmes are coordinating their science to understand changes in Antarctica.

Antarctica InSync brings together researchers from around the world including British Antarctic Survey to study the continent and the Southern Ocean at the same time.

Why this matters

Antarctica isn’t just a distant ice sheet – it plays a vital role in our planet’s climate. Changes there affect sea levels, ocean currents and weather patterns worldwide.

This work supports the UN Ocean Decade’s goals to understand and protect our global ocean.

How Antarctica InSync works

The project aims to build knowledge that no single nation could create alone. Instead of working separately, research teams will plan their field work together to better collect and share data. This will reveal how Antarctica’s ice, ocean, climate and wildlife are changing.

Scientists will share results through regular meetings, workshops and shared databases, enabling connections that individual studies might have missed.

Science objectives

Antarctica InSync focuses on four key areas:

1. Understanding how the Southern Ocean moves heat, freshwater, carbon and nutrients, and how these processes respond to climate change

2. Finding out why sea ice around Antarctica is shrinking so fast, and what this means for ocean currents and marine life

3. Measuring how quickly ice sheets and ice shelves are melting, and predicting impacts on coastal communities worldwide

4. Protecting Antarctica’s unique wildlife – from tiny organisms in the ice to whales in the deep ocean

The project runs in two phases: planning and coordination from 2024–2026, followed by intensive field work from 2027–2030 when coordinated observations will take place.