We have spearheaded methods to collect valuable field data and developed new computer modelling techniques to monitor and predict changes in the Earth's ice-covered regions. Our work is providing key input to climate change decision-making worldwide. Changes taking place in the Arctic, Antarctic and other glaciated regions are drivers for disruptive global changes, especially sea-level rise, with major impact worldwide. Our researchers have developed new computer modelling techniques that determined oceans' impact on the movement of ice around West Antarctica and Greenland, significantly improving predictions of the Antarctic Ice Sheet and its contribution to global sea-level rise over the next 200 years.Our efforts to measure landscapes at high resolution mean we now have a much more detailed understanding of how the landscape under ice effects its melting and movement.See some of the highlights of our work below: British Antarctic Survey The British Antarctic Survey (BAS) is an institute of the Natural Environment Research Council NERC) which delivers and enables world-leading research in the Polar Regions. The BAS included numerical-modelling programme dedicated to improved predictions of the Antarctic Ice Sheet's contribution to global sea-level rise over the next 200 years. This programme has been underpinned by geophysical measurements of Antarctica's ice-sheet bed, led by our researchers who acquired and processed data into subglacial topographic maps. Numerical-modelling equations and strategies developed at our University have contributed to greatly reduced uncertainties in the BAS programme for modelling the future of the ice sheets. Find out more on the British Antarctic Survey website International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration Our researchers have been working through the International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration. US National Science Foundation (NSF) and the UK Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) are teaming up to study a rapidly changing glacier roughly the same size as Florida or Britain. This partnership, called the International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration (ITGC), covers research across Thwaites Glacier and its adjacent ocean region and is the largest joint UK-US project undertaken on the southern continent in 70 years.You can find out more about the collaboration on the ITGC website. International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration website International climate reports Reports, such as those by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) are informed by programmes such as the British Antarctic survey and International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration. These contributions to the IPCC reports are underpinned by our researchers' work and their field data, which help predict future sea level rise. Many of the IPCC reports cite papers by our researchers.Find out more about our contributions to IPCC reports by clicking the button below View our work on international climate reports Satellite monitoring We are also conducting world-leading research that has improved the resolution for satellite monitoring of changing ice sheets and glaciers. Satellite observations gathered over glaciers worldwide have been critical to substantially improving estimates of the rates of ice loss and their contribution to sea-level rise.We developed new data analytic methods from satellite observations, providing greater insight into terrains. We can also better pinpoint where the ocean is eroding ice under the melting Antarctic ice shelves.For example, our work with organisations such as the European Space Agency has shown that Greenland today is losing ice seven times faster than two decades ago. You can read about our work with the European Space Agency by clicking the button below: Explore our work with space and satellite technology This article was published on 2025-07-16
