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%.

DATA AS ART #09

Volcanic ash Ice cores are cylinders of ice (approximately 10cm wide) drilled out of an ice sheet or glacier. On the East Antarctic Ice Sheet, these can be up to …

Bedmap Himalayas

Bedmap Himalayas is an ongoing BAS core-funded and grant-funded programme. It aims to measure how much water much is stored as glacier ice in High Mountain Asia. In warm weather, …

Weddell Sea ice sheet and climate

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 …

Ocean-driven ice-shelf thinning in Antarctica

By exploiting advances in ice sheet modelling, and new Antarctic-wide datasets, this project aims to predict how far and how fast the observed ocean-driven thinning of floating ice shelves will …

Ice Sheet Modelling

The research of the ice sheet modelling group focuses on integrating observational data with dynamical models that describe how the ice flows in order to improve our representation of how …

Antarctic Climate over the last millennia

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 …

Climate and Ice during the Last Interglacial

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 …

Arctic marine geophysics

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 …

a slice of an Antarctic Ice Core

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 …

A tent in the snow

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 …