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.

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 …

AI Lab - Digital Twin of the Polar Region

PolarDT – Digital Twin 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. Digital Twins (DTs) are already in operation in industry …

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 close up of a person wearing a mask.

Quest begins for oldest ice on Earth

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 …

Sea smoke early morning off the Ronne Ice Shelf

FEATURED PAPER: Sea-ice reduction

18 October, 2016

A team of British climate scientists comparing today’s environment with the warm period before the last ice age has discovered a 65% reduction of Antarctic sea ice around 128,000 years …

A snow covered mountain.

A recent pause in Antarctic Peninsula warming

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.

A large body of water.

Ocean warming primary cause of glacier retreat

14 July, 2016

A new study has found for the first time that ocean warming is the primary cause of retreat of glaciers on the Antarctic Peninsula. The Peninsula is one of the largest current contributors to sea-level rise and this new finding will enable researchers to make better predictions of ice loss from this region.

A close up of a brick wall.

Wind-blown Antarctic sea ice helps drive ocean circulation

27 June, 2016

Antarctic sea ice is constantly on the move as powerful winds blow it away from the coast and out toward the open ocean. A new study published today in the journal Nature Geoscience (Monday 27 June) shows how that ice migration may be more important for the global ocean circulation than anyone realized.

A large ship in the water.

Carbon dioxide level breached at Halley VI

16 June, 2016

Levels of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere – which is the leading driver of recent climate change – have reached a milestone at British Antarctic Survey’s …