Ice cores

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. …


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 …


Beyond Epica

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 …


Data as Art: POLAR AESTHETICS

British Antarctic Survey has an ongoing science & art collaboration with Royal College of Art PhD candidate Wayne Binitie. Wayne has visited BAS a number of times to develop his …


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 …


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 …


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 …


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 …


Ice cores and climate change

30 June, 2022

Introduction Ice cores are cylinders of ice drilled out of an ice sheet or glacier. Most ice core records come from Antarctica and Greenland, and the longest ice cores extend …



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 …




Beyond EPICA deep drilling campaign begins

7 December, 2022

Scientists return to East Antarctica this month (December) to locate the oldest ice on Earth. The team is part of an EU-funded research consortium from 10 European countries whose aim …


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 …



Drilling projects set to break new ground

29 April, 2020

Two new research projects – in partnership with British Antarctic Survey engineers –  will drill deeper than ever before in Antarctica and in space. The first project, called INCISED, is …



New mission for 1.5 million year climate record

9 April, 2019

This week a team of European researchers announces its plans for an ambitious mission to find the oldest ice on Earth (9 April 2019).  Antarctica’s ice has the potential to …