Larsen-C Benthos
On 12 July 2017, the Larsen-C Ice Shelf calved one of the largest iceberg originating from the Antarctic Peninsula ever recorded. As iceberg A68 moves north, it leaves behind an …
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.
On 12 July 2017, the Larsen-C Ice Shelf calved one of the largest iceberg originating from the Antarctic Peninsula ever recorded. As iceberg A68 moves north, it leaves behind an …
The Southern Ocean is one of the most important and poorly understood components of the global carbon cycle that profoundly shapes Earth’s climate. It is the primary hot spot for …
Polar Expertise – Supporting Development
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 …
Methane is one of the most important greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, and changes in its concentration could have major influences on the Earth’s climate. Measurements made around the world …
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 …
Reliable projections of the Earth’s climate are at the heart of scientific support for international efforts to address global change. There is increasing recognition that reliable projections require that physical …
Long-term meteorological and ozone observations and data help determine the causes of climate change in the polar regions. Meteorology Meteorological observations are made regularly throughout the day at Halley and …
Dynamics of the Orkney Passage Outflow (DynOPO) is a collaboration between BAS, the University of Southampton and the National Oceanography Centre (NOC). The project aims to investigate the flow of …
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 …
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3 November, 2021
British Antarctic Survey is one of seven Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) supported centres and the Met Office, which will work together as the new UK National Climate Science Partnership (UKNCSP) to respond to threats posed by a rapidly changing climate by putting climate science at the forefront of the solutions agenda.
13 October, 2021
A network of international researchers launches a European collaboration this week ( 14 October 2021). This collaboration will train a new generation of scientists to understand how past climate changes …
12 October, 2021
A dramatic art installation symbolising our warming climate will be launched at the Cambridge Cleantech annual conference on 20 October as the city’s innovators and scientists gather together to brainstorm …
29 September, 2021
A new immersive exhibition, Polar Zero, opens at Glasgow Science Centre this weekend (2 October), injecting an artistic and cultural dimension to the climate negotiations at the Conference of the …
26 August, 2021
A new AI (artificial intelligence) tool is set to enable scientists to more accurately forecast Arctic sea ice conditions months into the future. The improved predictions could underpin new early-warning …
17 August, 2021
Warming water and receding sea ice in the Western Antarctic Peninsula is changing the local plankton community with potential consequences for climate change, according to an international team of researchers. …
9 August, 2021
CAMBRIDGE: British Antarctic Survey welcomes the publication of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Working Group 1 component of its Sixth Assessment Report. This assessment brings together the latest advances in …
3 August, 2021
British Antarctic Survey scientists have contributed to a new study published today (3 August) which provides valuable new data highlighting how emperor penguins extinction risk is increased due to rapid …
20 July, 2021
The UK and Australia’s two new polar research ships get together off the coast of Falmouth during sea trials.
1 July, 2021
The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has today (1 July 2021) recognised a new record high temperature for the Antarctic continent of 18.3° Celsius on 6 February 2020 at the Esperanza …