THOR is a ship-based and ice-based project that will examine sedimentary record both offshore from the glacier and beneath the ice shelf, together with glacial landforms on the sea bed, …
GHC (“Geological History Constraints”) will gather information about past ice sheet behaviour and relative sea level change in the Thwaites Glacier system. Determining the timing and magniture of past episodes …
Sea ice is the cause of the largest uncertainties in climate model projections of polar change in the Southern Hemisphere (SH). During the Last Interglacial (LIG), between 130 000 and …
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 …
A decade ago, the European EPICA project completed drilling a deep ice core at Dome C, revealing the close link between climate and atmospheric greenhouse gases over the past 800,000 …
Long-term meteorological and ozone observations and data help determine the causes of climate change in the polar regions. Meteorology Meteorological observations are made regularly throughout the day at Halley and …
In the south of the Weddell Sea lies the Ronne and Filchner Ice Shelves. During the coldest part of the last glacial period about 25,000 years ago, the ice in …
The cause of the variability in atmospheric CO2 over glacial-interglacial timescales has been a puzzle since its discovery in the early 1980s. It is widely believed to be related to …
During the Last Interglacial (129-116 thousand years ago, ka) CO2 and global temperature were both higher than they were before human industrialisation. By examining Last Interglacial climate, we thus gain …
The Antarctic Peninsula and West Antarctica have warmed dramatically in recent decades, with some climate records indicating that these are among the most rapidly warming regions on Earth. The Antarctic …
Changes in wind strength and circulation patterns above the Antarctic Peninsula are linked to its warming and increased upwelling of warm circumpolar deep water, resulting in accelerated melting and thinning …
In order to assess the impact of anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO2) on the oceans today we are investigating the effect of decreasing upper ocean pH on calcifying zooplankton. Pteropods, …
In this NERC-funded project, we are generating Southern Hemisphere Westerlies (SHW) proxy records from each of the three major sectors of the Southern Ocean, focusing on subantarctic islands situated in …
This research focuses on investigating the glacial histories of Arctic ice sheets and ice caps using the marine geological record preserved on continental margins. By reconstructing past ice sheets, their …
This project will reconstruct millennial-scale ice sheet change in the western Amundsen Sea Embayment, Antarctica, using high-precision exposure dating.
iStar-D will identify the potential contribution to sea-level rise, from ice locked in the Amundsen Sea sector of Antarctica
Understanding the contribution that polar ice sheets make to global sea-level rise is recognised internationally as urgent. The mission of this five-year project is to capture new observations and data …
PI: Markus M. Frey Co-I’s: X. Yang, R. Mulvaney NERC Grant: NE/N011813/1 The ozone layer shields all land-based life forms from harmful ultraviolet radiation; and indirectly influences the climate at …
4 June, 2021
A study of two alternative methods for reconstructing ancient temperatures has given climate researchers a better understanding of how cold it was in Antarctica during the last Ice Age, around …
19 May, 2021
For the first time, geological records have been used to reconstruct the history of Larsen C Ice Shelf in Antarctica. The ice shelf is the largest remaining remnant of a …
9 December, 2020
Polar climate scientists have created the most high resolution past record of the Southern Hemisphere westerly winds. The results, published this week (9 December) in the journal Communications Earth and …
10 August, 2020
A new study, published this week in the journal Nature Climate Change, supports predictions that the Arctic could be free of sea ice by 2035. High temperatures in the Arctic …
29 June, 2020
The South Pole has warmed at over three times the global rate since 1989, according to a paper published in Nature Climate Change today (29 June 2020). This warming period was …
7 May, 2020
Warm winter spells have increased in frequency and duration two- to three times over since 1878, according to a new study published this week (6 May 2020). In a new …
1 April, 2020
An international team of researchers has provided a new and unprecedented perspective on the climate history of Antarctica. From a sediment core collected from the seafloor in West Antarctica, they …
28 January, 2020
Teams from the US and UK have successfully completed scientific fieldwork in one of the most remote and hostile areas of West Antarctica – coinciding with the 200th anniversary of …
12 February, 2019
A new study on ice cores shows that reductions in sea ice in the Arctic in the period between 30-100,000 years ago led to major climate events. During this period, …
6 November, 2018
Congratulations to Dr Emilie Capron who has been awarded the prestigious Early Career Scientist Award of the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics (IUGG). Dr Capron is a palaeoclimatologist at British …
23 July, 2018
A new study of lake sediments from the sub-Antarctic reveals for the first time that increases in westerly winds are likely to reduce the ability of the Southern Ocean to …
8 February, 2018
The most comprehensive study of the variability of temperature globally is published this week in the journal Nature. It reveals the degree to which temperature fluctuations reduced from the last …
5 July, 2017
Reporting this week (Wednesday 5 July) in the journal Nature, an international team of researchers led by British Antarctic Survey (BAS) explains that wind-driven incursions of warm water forced the …
2 March, 2017
BAS Director features in photographic portraits of women in science
15 January, 2017
A new blog post from a team comprising polar atmosphere and ice chemist Holly Winton, analytical chemist Rebecca Tuckwell and atmospheric and glaciochemist Markus Frey who are working on the …
14 November, 2016
First phase of project to collect 1.5 million years of climate data in Antarctica A team of European scientists heads to East Antarctica this month to locate the oldest ice …
26 July, 2016
An international team of scientists have used air bubbles in polar ice from pre-industrial times to measure the sensitivity of the Earth’s land biosphere to changes in temperature.
20 July, 2016
The rapid warming of the Antarctic Peninsula, which occurred from the early-1950s to the late 1990s, has paused. Stabilisation of the ozone hole along with natural climate variability were significant in bringing about the change. Together these influences have now caused the northern part of the peninsula to enter a temporary cooling phase. Temperatures remain higher than measured during the middle of the 20th Century and glacial retreat is still taking place. However, scientists predict that if greenhouse gas concentrations continue to rise at the current rate, temperatures will increase across the Antarctic Peninsula by several degrees Centigrade by the end of this century.
17 February, 2016
The catastrophic release of fresh water from a vast South American lake at the end of the last Ice Age was significant enough to change circulation in the Pacific Ocean …
19 November, 2015
The Earth’s climate was warmer than today by at least 1°C during the Last Interglacial (between 129,000 and 116,000 years ago). Thus, the Last Interglacial represents an invaluable case study …
8 July, 2015
Polar ice cores reveal volcanic eruptions that changed human history Researchers find new evidence that large eruptions were responsible for cold temperature extremes recorded since early Roman times A freshly …
12 May, 2014
Ocean winds keep Australia dry and Antarctica cold New research explains why Antarctica is not warming as much as other continents, and why southern Australia is recording more droughts. Analysis …
1 May, 2014
Earth’s last warm phase exposed Analysis of data collected from ice cores and marine sediment cores in both polar regions has given scientists a clearer picture of how the Earth’s …
23 January, 2013
Greenland ice core reveals warm past temperatures British Antarctic Survey scientists have contributed to a new study published in Nature (Thursday 24 January) that provides surprising details on changes in …
22 August, 2012
New climate history adds to understanding of recent Antarctic Peninsula warming Results published this week by a team of polar scientists from Britain, Australia and France adds a new dimension …
18 November, 2009
Mysteriously warm times in Antarctica A new study of Antarctica’s past climate reveals that temperatures during the warm periods between ice ages (interglacials) may have been higher than previously thought. …