Topic description and stories

Rapid melting of the world’s largest ice shelf linked to solar heat in the ocean

29 Apr 2019

An international team of scientists has found part of the world’s largest ice shelf is melting 10 times faster than the overall ice shelf average due...

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UK and US join forces to understand how quickly a massive Antarctic glacier could collapse

30 Apr 2018

A Cambridge researcher will lead one of eight projects in a new joint UK-US research programme that is one of the most detailed and extensive...

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Ice cliffs in Pine Island Bay

‘Scars’ left by icebergs record West Antarctic ice retreat

25 Oct 2017

Thousands of marks on the Antarctic seafloor, caused by icebergs which broke free from glaciers more than ten thousand years ago, show how part of...

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Antarctic Ice Sheet study reveals 8,000-year record of climate change

12 Dec 2016

An international team of researchers has found that the Antarctic Ice Sheet plays a major role in regional and global climate variability – a...

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Left: James Wordie was chief scientific officer in Shackleton’s Weddell Sea party, which sought to walk across Antarctica via the South Pole in 1915. Right: Members of the Endurance South Pole 100 team training in the Cairngorms

Endurance descendants to mark centenary by completing ancestor’s unfinished business

18 Nov 2015

The family of the chief scientific officer from Ernest Shackleton’s famous Endurance expedition are to mark its centenary by completing part of his...

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Sir Ernest Shackleton, pictured during the Endurance expedition

By Endurance We Conquer: Shackleton and his Men

13 Oct 2015

Ernest Shackleton’s Endurance diaries and boots – as well as the largest remaining piece of the doomed vessel – have gone on display in Cambridge...

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Head of an albatross caught on Sep. 22 1901 by Edward Adrian Wilson

“Albatross!” The legendary giant seabird

01 Jun 2015

The Cambridge Animal Alphabet series celebrates Cambridge's connections with animals through literature, art, science and society. Here, A is for...

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Last letter of Captain Scott finally revealed in full - 101 years on

29 Mar 2013

A letter written by the dying Captain Scott - one of only two remaining in private hands - can be revealed in full for the first time after being...

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The original 1912 camp

Heroic Age campsite location discovered near summit of Antarctic volcano

14 Dec 2012

A century after members of Captain Scott's Terra Nova Expedition climbed Mount Erebus, the University of Cambridge’s Professor Clive Oppenheimer has...

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Captain Scott writing his journal during the Terra Nova expedition

Conquering the Antarctic: The Scott Centenary Concert Tour

25 Jan 2012

City of London Sinfonia, in collaboration with the Scott Polar Research Institute (SPRI), will embark on an ambitious concert tour in February to...

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Scott writing in his hut during the fateful Terra Nova expedition.

‘These rough notes and our dead bodies…’

06 Dec 2011

The story of the Terra Nova expedition, explored through the letters, diaries and photographs of its members, is to be told during a once-in-a-...

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Art Fund judges' visit to the Polar Museum

Polar Museum short listed for £100,000 Art Fund Prize

19 May 2011

The Polar Museum at Cambridge University's Scott Polar Research Institute, has been short listed for the Art Fund Prize 2011 – the £100,000 prize for...

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