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.
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 …
Sea-ice is frequently cited as a likely driver and propagator of abrupt climate change because of the rapid and far-reaching impact of its feedbacks. However, numerical climate models are still …
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, …
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 …
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 …
The polar ice sheets play a major role in controlling Earth’s sea level and climate, but our understanding of their history and motion is poor. The biggest uncertainty in predicting …
This project will reconstruct millennial-scale ice sheet change in the western Amundsen Sea Embayment, Antarctica, using high-precision exposure dating.
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17 March, 2016
The Amundsen Sea Low (ASL) is a climatological low pressure system located over the southern Pacific Ocean, off the coast of West Antarctica. Atmospheric variability in this region is larger …
17 February, 2016
Take part in an online consultation about Europe’s research priorities for the Polar Regions
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 …
4 November, 2015
West Antarctic coastal snow accumulation rose 30 percent during 20th century Annual snow accumulation on West Antarctica’s coastal ice sheet increased dramatically during the 20th century, according to a new …
12 October, 2015
Government announces preferred bidder to build new polar ship Minister of State for Universities and Science, Jo Johnson announced today that the preferred bidder to build a new polar research …
17 September, 2015
Arctic sea ice 2015 On September 11, the National Snow and Ice Data Centre (NSIDC) reported that Arctic sea ice reached its likely minimum extent for 2015. The minimum ice …
30 July, 2015
The Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) has announced it will invest £16m in research to study the effects of dramatic changes in Arctic ice cover over the last three decades on …
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 …
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