Topic description and stories

Arctic Ocean started getting warmer decades earlier than we thought

24 Nov 2021

The Arctic Ocean has been getting warmer since the beginning of the 20th century – decades earlier than records suggest – due to warmer water flowing...

Read more

Fibre-optics used to take the temperature of Greenland Ice Sheet

14 May 2021

Scientists have used fibre-optic sensing to obtain the most detailed measurements of ice properties ever taken on the Greenland Ice Sheet. Their...

Read more
Lake on the surface of the Greenland Ice Sheet

Lakes on Greenland Ice Sheet can drain huge amounts of water, even in winter

01 Apr 2021

Using satellite data to ‘see in the dark’, researchers have shown for the first time that lakes on the Greenland Ice Sheet drain during winter, a...

Read more
View from Agulhas II

Antarctic ice sheets capable of retreating up to 50 metres per day

28 May 2020

The ice shelves surrounding the Antarctic coastline retreated at speeds of up to 50 metres per day at the end of the last Ice Age, far more rapid...

Read more

The polar explorer using Grime to break the ice

29 Jan 2020

It’s not often someone compares the voices of seals to the sounds of space set to a Grime beat. But when he’s not monitoring seals from space...

Read more
Thwaites Glacier

Vintage film reveals Antarctic glacier melting

03 Sep 2019

Newly available archival film has revealed the eastern ice shelf of Thwaites Glacier in Antarctica is melting faster than previous estimates...

Read more

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...

Read more
Icebergs in Ilulissat Icefjord, Greenland

Sea ice acts as ‘pacemaker’ for abrupt climate change

06 Mar 2019

Substantial variations in past sea ice cover in the Norwegian Sea were instrumental for several abrupt climate changes in large parts of the world...

Read more

Does the North Pole still matter?

01 Feb 2019

Is the North Pole still important, when most of us will never visit it and know almost nothing about it? A new book by University of Cambridge...

Read more

The search for Endurance

24 Jan 2019

In early January, a team of Cambridge scientists set out on an expedition to study and map the Larsen C ice shelf in western Antarctica, and – ice...

Read more

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...

Read more
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...

Read more

Pages