The evolution and ecology of Antarctic sea floor communities
The evolution and ecology of Antarctic sea floor communities is a UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship, led by Dr Rowan Whittle, looking at the past, present and future of life at …
Past climate
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 …
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 …
Stability and Instability – Records of External Drivers and Resulting Behaviour of Thwaites Glacier
THOR is a ship-based and ice-based project that will examine sedimentary record both offshore from the glacier and beneath the ice shelf, together with glacial landforms on the sea bed, …
Geological History Constraints on the Magnitude of Grounding Line Retreat in the Thwaites Glacier System
GHC (“Geological History Constraints”) will gather information about past ice sheet behaviour and relative sea level change in the Thwaites Glacier system. Determining the timing and magniture of past episodes …
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 …
Meteorology and Ozone Monitoring
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 …
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 …
The role of the Southern Ocean in regulating atmospheric CO2 on glacial-interglacial timescales
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 …
Antarctic drilling missions seek to understand climate and ice dynamics
12 December, 2024
Over 30 researchers from international institutes are working on ice core drilling campaigns in Antarctica to probe the ice sheet’s behaviour, carbon cycling in the Southern Ocean, and the Earth’s …
Grim outlook for Antarctica’s Thwaites Glacier
20 September, 2024
New science briefing summarises results of the ambitious international collaboration to study Antarctica’s most worrying glacier Cambridge: A vast area of the Antarctic Ice Sheet continues to retreat as a …
Expedition to Greenland will piece together movements of ancient civilisation
1 August, 2024
An interdisciplinary team of researchers is heading back to Greenland this week (30 July) for the second phase of the Wandel Dal Project. This unique project aims to unravel the …
The dawn of the Antarctic ice sheets
4 July, 2024
For the first time, researchers, including from British Antarctic Survey, have combined unique geological samples with sophisticated modelling to provide surprising insights into when and where today’s East and West …
Hold polar ice at Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition
29 April, 2024
British Antarctic Survey, in partnership with the University of Cambridge, will be at the 2024 Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition, showcasing how, using Antarctic ice cores to unlock the past, we …
DNA reveals unique microorganisms evolved at poles
14 February, 2024
Communities of microorganisms at the bottom of polar lakes evolved independently from other regions, influenced by the particular geological, biological and climate history of their regions. The unique character of …
Octopus DNA solves mystery of ice sheet’s past
22 December, 2023
Scientists, including from British Antarctic Survey, have used octopus DNA to discover that the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) likely collapsed during the Last Interglacial period around 120,000 years ago …
Team heads for Antarctica to study global warming effects
8 November, 2023
A research mission to Antarctica will study the effects of global warming on the West Antarctic ice sheet. The mission is part of an international research programme, which includes researchers …
Rocks beneath Antarctic Ice Sheet reveal surprising past
30 May, 2023
The West Antarctic Ice Sheet is shrinking, with many glaciers across the region retreating and melting at an alarming rate. However, this was not always the case according to new …
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 …