Understanding the role of the Polar Regions in climate change is a huge scientific challenge and an urgent priority for society.  Our multidisciplinary climate research programmes investigate a wide range of science questions providing accurate information to politicians and policy makers.

The Antarctic is a pivotal part of the Earth’s climate system and a sensitive barometer of environmental change. Although remote and inhospitable, Antarctica is Earth’s most powerful natural laboratory. Understanding how the Antarctic is responding to current climate change – and what the continent was like in the past – is essential if scientists are to be able to more accurately predict future climate change and provide accurate information to politicians and policy makers.

British Antarctic Survey (BAS) has for the past 60 years been responsible for most of the UK’s scientific research in Antarctica and its current five-year research strategy is focussed on deepening our understanding of climate change.

Antarctic ice cores reveal the clearest link between levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and the Earth’s temperature. They show that the temperature of the climate and the levels of greenhouse gases are intimately linked. In 2004, ice core scientists at BAS working together with colleagues from other European nations successfully extracted a three-kilometre ice core from the Antarctic. This core contains a record of the Earth’s climate stretching back 800,000 years – giving us by far the oldest continuous climate record yet obtained from ice cores.

BAS geologists can look back even further in time. By studying Antarctic rocks and sediments from the sea and lake beds, they are able to get a picture of what the Antarctic was like millions of years ago when the continent was warm and supported plants and animals such as dinosaurs. Understanding how the ice sheets that currently cover the continent developed and how they have receded in the past is essential if we are to be able to predict how those ice sheets will behave in a warmer world.

Much of BAS science is done on the Antarctic Peninsula – one of the fastest warming parts of the planet. BAS glaciologists are also studying the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, parts of which are thinning rapidly. Their work is crucial to understanding whether this thinning could signal the start of the ice sheet’s collapse, an event that would cause sea levels to rise much more than currently predicted.

On sea as well as on land, BAS scientists are investigating climate change. As the waters warm around Antarctica, ecologists at BAS are looking at how penguins, seals and the other species that make up one of the world’s largest marine ecosystems are responding.

Because the causes and effects of climate change are extraordinarily complex, assembling all the pieces of the climate change jigsaw is a huge challenge. By conducting world-class science in the Antarctic, BAS is making a significant contribution to meeting this challenge.

Ice core data showing CO2 (yellow) and temperature going back 800,000 years

DI4EDS

Environmental research relies on digital infrastructure (hardware, software and methods) to provide services that help researchers answer questions about the environment around us, and innovators to work out ways that …

turbulence probe over sea ice

Arctic Summer-time Cyclones

The Arctic Summer-time Cyclone Project is a joint project of scientists from the University of Reading, University of East Anglia and the British Antarctic Survey with expertise in atmospheric dynamics, …

A snow covered mountain

The Big Thaw

The Big Thaw is an ambitious new UKRI/NERC-funded Highlight Topic project assessing past, present and future changes in global mountain water resources by studying snow/ice accumulation and melt in the …

Background pattern

Digital Twins of the Polar Regions

Digital Twinning is next generation technology for data fusion and computer modelling enabling us to rapidly get answers to “what-if” questions. DTs are already in operation in industry and involve …

A man flying a kite in the snow

SIWHA

The NERC funded SIWHA_CO2 project “Sea Ice and Westerly winds during the Holocene in coastal Antarctica, to better constrain oceanic CO2 uptake” will be a breakthrough in our understanding of how …

MesoS2D

In order to accurately predict impacts of space weather and climate variability on the whole atmosphere we need an accurate representation of the whole atmosphere. The mesosphere (~50-95 km altitude) …

ice stories composite

Polar Zero – Ice Stories

Polar Zero forms a major part of British Antarctic Survey’s (BAS) multi-media engagement plan for COP 26.  Ice Stories draws on personal anecdotes, memories and oral testimonies from the national …

Chart showing climate temperature records from the Arctic in a blue to red colour scale

Climate Code

This collaborative project is born from exploring novel ways of visualising environment​al data and telling the climate change story. Read more about the project and the science behind it through the project page.

Glacier on the Antarctic Peninsula

Antarctic tipping points

1 June, 2023

Concern is rising about tipping points in the Antarctic region (Armstrong et al., 2022). Recent heatwaves, changes in the Southern Ocean, and a reduction in the extent of Antarctic sea …

Melting sea icewith melt pools and snow-free terrain, Antarctic Peninsula.

Winter warming in Antarctica

27 October, 2022

Introduction Understanding Antarctic warming and its consequences is vitally important for our planet.  Parts of Antarctica, including the Antarctic Peninsula and West Antarctica, have experienced significant warming over the last …

A group of clouds in the sky over a body of water

Funding addresses environmental challenges

27 June, 2022

British Antarctic Survey (BAS) scientists will investigate critical challenges facing the UK, thanks to new funding from the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC). A £47m investment to several UK research …

A view of a mountain

Report highlights changes in Antarctica

24 May, 2022

A new report published today (Tuesday 24 May) sends a strong message to countries responsible for Antarctic governance meeting this week in Berlin, that there’s a need for urgent action on minimising climate change impacts in Antarctica and their far-reaching global consequences.

A snow covered mountain.

Study sets course for research on Himalayan waters

22 April, 2022

A new study featuring contributions from British Antarctic Survey (BAS) scientists has identified 100 pressing research questions on climate change and water resources in the Upper Indus Basin (UIB) that must be answered to protect the communities that live there.

Heat source melting Greenland Ice Sheet discovered

21 February, 2022

A new study has found that the world’s second-largest ice sheet is generating huge amounts of heat. Researchers including BAS oceanographer Dr Keith Nicholls have observed extremely high rates of melting at the bottom of the Greenland Ice Sheet.

A sign on a pole in the snow

Drilling of oldest ice on Earth completed

18 February, 2022

The first ice core drilling campaign of Beyond Epica-Oldest Ice has been successfully completed at the remote Little Dome C site in Antarctica – one of the most extreme places …