Archives: Projects

Southern Ocean Clouds

SOC is a project of the NERC CloudSense Programme The biases observed in climate models over the Southern Ocean in surface radiation and sea surface temperature are larger than anywhere …

Water isotopes in UKESM2

We will add water tracers (including stable water isotopes) to the UK Earth System Model (UKESM2) which will track through the model’s hydrological cycle. This work is part of the …

Black-browed Albatross Juvenile Tracking

Until the last decade, South Georgia held the third largest population of black-browed albatrosses at any island group (Phillips et al. 2016) [4]. However, assuming trends at surveyed sites are …

Biodiversity

Fragmentation occurs when parts of a habitat are lost due to for example change of land use, leaving behind smaller unconnected areas. This makes survival of the species of the …

Exposure

Exposure is one of the corners of the risk triangle, the other parameters being hazard and the vulnerability. In this context exposure is defined as the degree to which elements-at-risk …

AI4EOAccelerator

The AI4EO Accelerator is a collaboration between Φ-Lab of the European Space Agency (ESA) and the UKRI Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT) in the Application of Artificial Intelligence to the …

SDOO

Abrupt warming episodes punctuate Greenland ice core records throughout the last glacial period. These events were first identified in two Greenland stable water isotope records (Dansgaard et al., 1993), and …

Port Lockroy Data Portal

Port Lockroy is the site of the first permanent British Antarctic base, ‘Base A’. This historic station was designated Historic Site No. 61 under the Antarctic Treaty on the 19th …

CUPIDO

CUPIDO aims to address: what is the role of zooplankton in promoting the transport of plastic in the ocean?
and how this plastic transport interferes with zooplankton’s ability to store carbon in the deep ocean?

UK Polar Horizons 2021

We are exploring funding and resource options for running Polar Horizons again in the future. Keep an eye out on BAS socials for the latest updates on different activities and …

Antarctic Coastal Winds

Winds along the Antarctic coast are small scale but have global importance. Climate models must have a realistic representation of these winds as they influence ice shelves, sea ice and …

SO-WISE

We are constructing observationally-constrained estimates of the state of the Weddell Gyre, including associated ice shelves and sea ice Introduction In the 25 years between 1992 and 2017, ocean melting …

READER observations

The READER data set is continuously being revised as more observations are acquired, however as with any data set we expect READER to contain errors. The observations come from a …

Diversity in UK Polar Science – Resources

This page is meant to be interactive. We would like you to explore the documents our project team has created: ask questions about them, use them, and help us make them more useful for you. Get in touch with us if you’d like to hear about our activities, participate in surveys and more.

READER

READER (REference Antarctic Data for Environmental Research) is a project of the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR http://www.scar.org/) and has the goal of creating a high quality, long term dataset …

Virtual Antarctica – ice analysis

Virtual Antarctica – Ice Analysis Laboratories Clean and Cold Rooms: a virtual visit – test only The scan demonstrates the capabilities of the VR360 camera technology and allow viewers to …

Ice Floor Sci-Art Installation

Ice Floor, is an immersive exhibition commissioned by engineering consultants Arup. UK born artist Wayne Binitie created the installation.

BID

The BAS Transformation Programme is a key driver of change across the organisation. Our ambition is to pull together our in-house expertise to rethink our future ways of working. In …

Transformation

Realising the benefits of the Antarctic Infrastructure Modernisation programme.

Chinstrap Penguin Tracking

The commercial fishery for Antarctic krill (Euphausia superba) operates in the southwest Atlantic, in particular along the west Antarctic Peninsula, and over the shelf breaks of the South Shetland Islands, …

Plastic Policy

BAS researchers play leading roles within the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR) as chair and members of the Plastic Action Group, a group which aims to assess the current …

Water Resources of the Upper Indus Basin

The Indus River Basin feeds the world’s largest system of irrigated agriculture, supporting over 300 million people across India and Pakistan. Demand on freshwater in this region is growing, and …

SEANA

Global shipping is undergoing significant changes. In January 2020 the maximum sulphur emission by ships in international waters will reduce from 3.5% to 0.5% by mass, as a result of …

North Sea Methane

Offshore gas fields worldwide are major sources of methane emissions. Developing reliable methods to locate emissions and pinpoint sources is critical for quantifying the volume of methane emissions from gas …

Whole Atmosphere Climate Change

The near-Earth space environment is host to an increasing amount of advanced, satellite-based technology, used for both commercial and scientific purposes. To safeguard this technology and ensure that we can …

SWIGS

  Certain ground based technologies, such as electrical power grids, pipelines and railways are susceptible to the effects of Space Weather. Changes in the way the magnetic fields of the …

Polar Ice

The aim of this project is to develop a next generation sea ice information service by integrating and building on a wide range of European and national funded activities which …

WAMSISE

WAMSISE is a three-year project starting in November 2018 and funded through a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Action (MSCA) Global Fellowship (H2020-MSCA-IF-GF-2017 no.: 792773 WAMSISE). The evolution of the Antarctic Ice Sheet …

‘Sounds of Space’

Using a Very Low Frequency receiver at Halley Research Station we can pick up radio waves made by our planet. We use these waves to investigate the science of space …

Joule Heating

Society is highly dependent on the fleet of satellites that surround our planet. We rely on them for entertainment, communication, navigation, weather forecasting, and more.  Many day-to-day activities, such as …

RAPIDKRILL

Even though the majority of measures to manage the marine environment are relatively fixed or adhere to set formulas (e.g. marine protected areas, total allowable catches and quota setting), the …

Real Projections

Predicting how the climate will change as human activities lead to emission of more greenhouse gases is a global scientific challenge for climate scientists. We use models of the climate …

Halley Automation

Halley Automation This innovative, multi-year, project aims to provide a micro-turbine power supply and datalink to a suite of autonomous scientific instrumentation around the Halley VI Research Station and on …

P-RAID

The ice sheets of Antarctica can be several kilometres thick, and contain precious information about the past climate. However, the bottoms of the ice sheets are melting, erasing this information. …

Gentoo Penguin Tracking

A fishery for Antarctic krill (Euphausia superba) operates over the shelf breaks of the South Orkney, South Shetland and South Georgia archipelagos [8]. Krill is an important food source for …

Grey-headed Albatross Juvenile Tracking

The grey-headed albatross is listed as Endangered in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species because of a decline since the 1970s of the largest global breeding population, which is …

Geophysical Habitat of Subglacial Thwaites

GHOST is an ice-based project which will examine the bed beneath the Thwaites Glacier, to assess whether conditions are likely to allow rapid retreat, or if the retreat may slow …

Penguin foraging in a warming ocean

The aim of this project is to learn more about the feeding habits of penguins around the Antarctic Peninsula to understand how their behaviour may be changing as the waters …

International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration

This joint UK-US research programme aims to improve the understanding of the processes affecting ice sheet stability to predict, with more certainty, the future impact of sea-level rise from Thwaites …

Our Research

The study of the last interglacial sea ice requires a cross-disciplinary team of scientists in the fields of climate modelling, sea ice dynamics, and ice/marine sediment cores.   The “Retreat …

The Last Interglacial

The Last Interglacial was a period of the Earth’s geological history (between 130 000 and 115 000 years BP) characterized by a climate warmer than today, with a higher global …

DRAGON-WEX

DRAGON-WEX (the DRake pAssaGe and sOuthern oceaN – Wave EXperiment) is a NERC funded standard grant between the University of Bath and the British Antarctic Survey.   We will implement and …

Outreach

    UK Antarctic Heritage Trust   Among our outreach activities, we collaborate with the charity UK Antarctic Heritage Trust to produce inspirational resources for schools. Our objective is to …

ICEGRAV

The ICEGRAV project is a major international collaboration between Danish, US, UK, Norwegian and Argentinian scientists. The primary aim of the project is to carry our airborne gravity observations across …

South Georgia Right Whale project

Long term surveys of the recovery of whales from historical exploitation in South Georgia waters are carried out by the British Antarctic Survey’s “Wild Water Whales” project. At present the …

Larsen-C Benthos

On 12 July 2017, the Larsen-C Ice Shelf calved one of the largest iceberg originating from the Antarctic Peninsula ever recorded. As iceberg A68 moves north, it  leaves behind an …

Skua monitoring at Rothera

The small population of south polar skuas (up to 25 pairs) at Rothera Point has been studied since the late 1990s. The initial intention was to monitor possible impacts of …

Virtual Antarctica – JCR Demo VR360

VR360 scans onboard RRS James Clark Ross The scans are to demonstrate the capabilities of the VR360 camera technology and allow viewers to walk around parts of our station in a …

Virtual Antarctica – Bird Island Demo VR360

VR360 scans at Bird Island Research Station to show the main station building and Generator Shed. The scans are to demonstrate the capabilities of the VR360 camera technology and allow viewers …

Virtual Antarctica – Signy Demo VR360

VR360 scans at Signy Research Station to show the main station building and Generator Shed. The scans are to demonstrate the capabilities of the VR360 camera technology and allow viewers to …

CMIP6

Header image from V. Eyring et al.: Overview of the CMIP6 experimental design and organization. https://www.geosci-model-dev.net/9/1937/2016/gmd-9-1937-2016.pdf The Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP) coordinates and designs global climate model simulations of …

ApRES and groundwater

The aim of this study is to investigate whether a technique developed to measure the basal meltrate of ice shelves can be used to monitor groundwater in arid and semi-arid …

Higher Predators – Signy Island – Penguin monitoring

Three species of penguin breed on Signy Island: Adélie penguins (Pygoscelis adeliae), chinstrap penguins (Pygoscelis antarcticus) and gentoo penguins (Pygoscelis papua). These species have contrasting breeding and foraging strategies and …

Higher Predators – Bird Island – Penguin monitoring

Two species of penguin breed on Bird Island: macaroni penguins (Eudyptes chrysolophus) and gentoo penguins (Pygoscelis papua). These species have contrasting breeding and foraging strategies and ranging behaviour. Gentoo penguins …

Modelling Movement of Antarctic Krill

The MMAK project is using state-of-the-art ocean-sea ice models to improve our understanding of processes that influence the distribution of krill in the South Orkney Islands region.

Higher Predators – Long-Term Science

The British Antarctic Survey carries out Long Term Science that measures changes in Antarctic ecosystems and seeks to understand the underlying drivers and processes. Marine predators are sensitive to changes …

Impact of Plastic in the Polar Regions

An estimated 75% of all the litter in our oceans is plastic, and around 5 million tonnes of plastic waste enter the ocean annually. Scientific observations of a significant concentration …

SONATA

The Southern Ocean is one of the most important and poorly understood components of the global carbon cycle that profoundly shapes Earth’s climate. It is the primary hot spot for …

Iceland Greenland seas Project

PI: Ian Renfrew (University of East Anglia) CO-I’s: Tom Bracegirdle, Tom Lachlan-Cope, Alexandra Weiss PDRA’s: Andrew Elvidge (University of East Anglia), James Pope NERC Grant: NE/N009924/1 Project Partners: Robert Pickart …

OFIC

Antarctic ice-loss research capability

THeMES

The thermosphere is the uppermost layer of our atmosphere at the edge of space (85 to 1000 km altitude). Within this region orbit thousands of satellites worth billions of pounds …

Data As Art

DATA AS ART is an ongoing science & art project in development at NERC’s British Antarctic Survey (BAS). It visualises science data (in its widest definition), to create stunning and …

60 Second Science

We’ve challenged our science, engineering and support staff and their research collaborators to explain in 60 seconds what they do.  Decide for yourself if they have met the challenge well!  …

POETS-WCB

The main deliverable of the Western Core Box (WCB) is a consistent unique time series of mesoscale distribution and abundance of macro-zooplankton and micronekton, and an understanding of the physical …

Rad-Sat

Rad-Sat is a NERC Highlight Topic that brings together a consortium of scientists from 5 different UK research groups, stakeholders from the space industry and a network of international collaborators. …

SO-AntEco Biodiversity

In this collaboration with the Natural History Museum (NHM) and the University of Liverpool, we have developed novel methods for using existing data to contribute to marine conservation and fisheries …

SuperDARN

The Super Dual Auroral Radar Network (SuperDARN) has been operating as an international co-operative organisation for over 25 years, and has proved to be one of the most successful tools …

COMICS

Investigating the twilight zone The four-year COMICS project, is led by the National Oceanography Centre, is a collaboration between the British Antarctic Survey and the universities of Queen Mary London, …

SubICE

The Sub-Antarctic – ice coring expedition (SubICE), part of the international Antarctic Circumnavigation Expedition (ACE), successfully drilled several shallow ice cores, from five of the remote and globally significant sub-Antarctic …

Rothera Wharf

Over the next decade Rothera Research Station will be upgraded to ensure its facilities keep the UK at the forefront of climate, biodiversity and ocean research.