BEAMISH: Basal Conditions on Rutford Ice Stream
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 …
Ice & ice-movement
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%.
AGAP
Exploring Antarctica’s ‘ghost mountains’
Aero geophysical investigation of Institute and Moller Ice Streams
West Antarctic ‘rivers’ of ice
ANiSEED
This project will reconstruct millennial-scale ice sheet change in the western Amundsen Sea Embayment, Antarctica, using high-precision exposure dating.
Filchner Ice Shelf System, Antarctica
Understanding the contribution that polar ice sheets make to global sea-level rise is recognised internationally as urgent. The mission of this five-year project is to capture new observations and data …
iSTAR-C Dynamical control on the response of Pine Island Glacier
iStar-C – strives to understand the dynamical control and response to change of Pine Island Glacier
iSTAR – Stability of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet
Science on the move – the mission to understand the stability of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet
Giant iceberg set to calve from Larsen C Ice Shelf
6 January, 2017
A huge iceberg, roughly the size of Norfolk, looks set to break away from the Larsen C ice shelf on the Antarctic Peninsula. Larsen C is more than twice the size …
New study shows when Pine Island Glacier retreat began
23 November, 2016
New study reveals when West Antarctica’s largest glacier started retreating Reporting this week (Wednesday 23 November) in the journal Nature an international team led by British Antarctic Survey (BAS) explains …
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 …
FEATURED PAPER: Tidal controls on ice streams
18 October, 2016
The often large ocean tides around Antarctica can greatly affect the flow of ice streams even long distances upstream of their grounding lines. Observing and modelling this interaction serves as …
Polar ice reveals secrets of carbon-climate feedbacks
26 July, 2016
An international team of scientists have used air bubbles in polar ice from pre-industrial times to measure the sensitivity of the Earth’s land biosphere to changes in temperature.
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.
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.
FEATURED PAPER: Improved modelling of ice-ocean processes
19 May, 2016
Pine Island Glacier in West Antarctica is currently one of the single biggest contributors to sea-level rise with an estimated volume loss of 1.2mm sea-level equivalent per decade. The loss …
On the ice opportunity for PhD students and Early Career Researchers
7 April, 2016
16 PhD students and Early Career Researchers have a unique opportunity to gain practical skills for working safely and effectively in the polar regions.
FEATURED PAPER: Recent snowfall increase
16 December, 2015
This paper reveals that the amount of snowfall in coastal West Antarctica has increased during the 20th century, with annual snow accumulation since the 1990s the highest we have observed …
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