Over the past 40 years, ice cores have revealed more about climate change than any other scientific technique. Over the last few decades, satellites have detected changes to the amount of sea ice that covers the polar oceans. Since 1979 summer sea-ice extent in the Arctic has reduced at 10% per decade. Some major glaciers that drain the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets have accelerated by as much as 50%.

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 …


Bedmap Himalayas

Bedmap Himalayas is an ongoing BAS core-funded and grant-funded programme. It aims to measure how much water much is stored as glacier ice in High Mountain Asia. In warm weather, …


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 …


Ocean-driven ice-shelf thinning in Antarctica

By exploiting advances in ice sheet modelling, and new Antarctic-wide datasets, this project aims to predict how far and how fast the observed ocean-driven thinning of floating ice shelves will …


Ice Sheet Modelling

The research of the ice sheet modelling group focuses on integrating observational data with dynamical models that describe how the ice flows in order to improve our representation of how …


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 …


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 …



Arctic marine geophysics

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 …



NEWS STORY: Ice melt rates measured

13 September, 2013

Antarctic research details ice melt below massive glacier An expedition of international scientists to the far reaches of Antarctica’s remote Pine Island Glacier has yielded exact measurements of an undersea …



NEWS STORY: Mission to Pine Island Glacier

9 September, 2013

Ambitious science mission sets off for Antarctica A team of British scientists is making final preparations for an ambitious Antarctic science mission. They aim to discover what’s causing the recent …


NEWS STORY: Measuring icequakes

28 August, 2013

Icequakes unlock secrets of icestreams Measuring tiny icequakes is helping British Antarctic Survey scientists investigate ice streams despite the challenging environment they have to work in. The work of Emma …



NEWS STORY: Royal Society accolade for expert

20 March, 2013

Top scientist receives Royal Society Research Professorship to fund long-term UK research A Royal Society Research Professorship has been awarded to one of British Antarctic Survey’s leading climate scientists Professor …


NEWS STORY: Greenland ice shows past trends

23 January, 2013

Greenland ice core reveals warm past temperatures British Antarctic Survey scientists have contributed to a new study published in Nature (Thursday 24 January) that provides surprising details on changes in …


NEWS STORY: Sea level rise calculated

30 November, 2012

British Antarctic Survey researchers part of landmark study to improve projections for future sea level An international team of satellite experts including researchers at British Antarctic Survey has produced the …


PRESS RELEASE: Ice sheet behaviour analysed

17 October, 2012

Ice sheet retreat controlled by the landscape Ice-sheet retreat can halt temporarily during long phases of climate warming, according to scientists. A UK team led by Durham University has found …


NEWS STORY: Assessing potential sea level rise

10 May, 2012

New studies improve scientists’ understanding of the potential contribution of the Antarctic Ice Sheet to global sea level rise Three peer-reviewed papers in Nature and Nature Geoscience published in recent …