Over the past 40 years, ice cores have revealed more about climate change than any other scientific technique. Over the last few decades, satellites have detected changes to the amount of sea ice that covers the polar oceans. Since 1979 summer sea-ice extent in the Arctic has reduced at 10% per decade. Some major glaciers that drain the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets have accelerated by as much as 50%.

RIFT-TIP

RIFT-TIP is a NERC-funded scientific project investigating iceberg calving and fracture growth in ice shelves.  The RIFT-TIP team will work primarily out of Halley Research Station, using seismic, radar, ApRES …


KANG-GLAC

The Greenland Ice Sheet is decaying at an accelerating rate in response to climate change. Warm ocean waters moving through the fjords eventually meet the faces of marine-terminating glaciers, increasing …


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 …


Bedmap

Bedmap is a collaborative community project with the aim to produce a new map and datasets of Antarctic ice thickness and bed topography for the international glaciology and geophysical community, …


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 …


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 …


Ice Floor Sci-Art Installation

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


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. …




Antarctic ice explains dip in CO2 levels

5 March, 2024

Small bubbles of air from ice in Antarctica resolve a long-standing debate about why there was a decline in atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) during the 16th and 17th centuries. The …




New field season on Thwaites Glacier underway

7 December, 2023

Thirty seven scientists and over 24 support staff are arriving in Antarctica to work on Thwaites Glacier. They are part of the ambitious international effort to understand the glacier and …


Antarctic photo nominated in competition

6 December, 2023

The Royal Society Publishing Photography Competition celebrates the power of photography in capturing scientific phenomena happening all around us, and the role great images play in making science accessible to …


Scientists track rapid retreat of Antarctic glacier

28 November, 2023

Scientists are warning that apparently stable glaciers in Antarctica can change rapidly and lose large quantities of ice as a result of warmer oceans. Using satellite data, a team discovered …


Hamish Pritchard awarded Innovation in Meteorology Prize

5 October, 2023

British Antarctic Survey glaciologist Hamish Pritchard has won the 2023 Harry Otten Prize for Innovation in Meteorology. His idea, Lakes as snowfall sensors: solving the precipitation problem in the mountain …



60 years of Antarctic ice sheet data released

17 July, 2023

In a significant milestone for Antarctic research, detailed and extensive information on ice thickness and bed topography is now available for the first time in a centralised and standardised format. …