@keithmakinson
Polar Oceanographer and Subglacial Access Drilling Engineer at British Antarctic Survey @bas.ac.uk Ice Shelves | Ocean | Tides | Ice Streams | Subglacial Lakes | Hot Water Drilling | Ice Drilling | Running |
In January-February, a scientific expedition traveled to Antarctica to study its fastest melting glacier, the Thwaites. You can find out more here (includes photos and videos): www.nytimes.com/live/2025/cl... (gift). 🌎
You can follow @zhonggg.bsky.social and Chang Lee's coverage of the trip to the Thwaites Glacier here. This has got to be the most well-covered research cruise ever. 🌊
To go under Thwaites Glacier, the only way is through ⬇️
This intrepid UK-Korean science team are tunnelling 1000m through one of the world's most unstable ice shelves.
They'll get daily data showing how warm ocean water is melting Thwaites from below - crucial for predicting sea level rise.
We've never seen anyone so enthusiastic to crush ice – but a team of scientists are studying the cracking of ice, and they’re pretty hyped! ❄️
@newscientist.com spoke to members of the RIFT-TIP project, who are investigating how ice shelf fractures grow.
Watch the video here: tinyurl.com/526tn8zz
Liz stands in a walk-in scientific freezer, wearing a warm jacket. She's holding a long ice sample - a narrow stick of ice about a metre long and only a few centimetres wide. It's from a box containing many ice cores. Photo credit: Jamie Oliver, BAS.
We've had a Very Important Ice delivery!
These precious ancient ice core samples from Antarctica are expected to reveal a climate record stretching back more than 1.5 million years 🤯
That's further than we've ever looked back before.
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Image of an Antarctic iceberg with white text on a green background reading: We've published a report on the uk and the Antarctic environment
"It is impossible to overstate how critical this region is to our shared future." - @tobyperkinsmp.bsky.social, Chair
Read our report on the UK and the Antarctic environment: publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm5901/cm...
This is almost unbelievable. It's now May and there is still virtually no new sea ice forming in the Bellingshausen Sea (lower left region in image).
Image showing sea ice concentration derived from AMSR satellite data is by Institute of Environmental Physics, University of Bremen, Germany.
The Penguin Book of penguins - An Expert's Guide to the World's Most Beloved Bird
by Peter Fretwell and Lisa Fretwell
www.penguin.co.uk/books/464310...
@ptfretwell.bsky.social
@bas.ac.uk
#PenguinBooks #VikingBooksUK
Update on Thwaites Glacier Eastern Ice Shelf from Copernicus Sentinel-1 SAR. Downloadable version here: aluckman4.wixsite.com/ade-s-world-...
Seriously remote work, in Antarctica. The photo is of Halley Research Station, stretching into the distance on a flat white polar landscape, with the label 'Today's Office'
Year-end scramble getting you down? ⏳
Applications for lots of our Antarctic #jobs are closing in the next week. They include vehicles manager at Halley, and Radio Operator and IT Engineer at Rothera Research Station.
These are jobs unlike any other, in one of the most beautiful places on Earth ⬇️
NASA/JSC/ISS
Iceberg A23a pictured from the ISS. The space station is almost as far south as it can reach here (51.5° S, 49.0° W - altitude of 422km). Picture taken on 14 March, so the berg had been grounded at South Georgia for a fortnight by this time.
Scientists made a stunning discovery beneath an Antarctic ice shelf—thriving life in a world once thought uninhabitable.The breakthrough offers new insights into deep-sea ecosystems and the resilience of life in extreme environments.
indianexpress.com/ar...
1.2 million years - have you heard of ice this old?! 🧊
These ice cores were retrieved as part of the Beyond EPICA - Oldest Ice project, which aims to unlock crucial insights into Earth's past climate and atmospheric conditions
#ice #climate
Read the full story 👇
www.bas.ac.uk/media-post/a...
As polar night ends and sunlight begins to return to Longyearbyen, lets see how the Svalbard seasons progressed last year - from ice-locked fjords in March, through to the first snows of October. Thanks to NASA MODIS via GIBS. Download at full resolution here: aluckman4.wixsite.com/ade-s-world-...
Bedmap3 is now out
rdcu.be/ecTmO
A fieldwork map of the Union Glacier region. Ice thickness is shown in a yellowy-green colour ramp, contours are shown with thin blue lines, and mountain spot heights are given in metres and feet.
A map of the Antarctic Peninsula and West Antarctica, with blue sea and white land. Ice shelves are grey. Various depots are shown on the map as pink crosses, and lines are drawn between these points giving distances.
The last Twin Otter aircraft has just left Rothera which marks the end of the field season, and gives us a chance to look back at the support we have provided over the year. We started with fieldwork and air unit maps!
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A map of the recent positions of iceberg A23a from 17th Jan - 3rd March 2025. Bathymetry is shown on the map, with shallow shelf areas indicating where the iceberg is stuck on the seafloor.
A map showing the track of iceberg A23a from calving (breaking off) the Filchner Ice Shelf in 1986, to its most recent position SW of South Georgia. The track is shown with purple dots. Bathymetry is shown with a blue colour ramp.
The world's largest iceberg, A23a, appears to have grounded close to South Georgia. We've been monitoring and mapping this berg for many years now and we're watching closely to see what it might do next! These maps show its route since 1986 and the latest position to the SW of South Georgia ❄️🐧
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Hot off the press - the latest edition of the BAS Long Read! 🔥📰
Get ready to hear from three Antarctic scientists - Dr Emma Pearce, Dr Liz Thomas, and Dr Dieter Tetzner - about their work drilling for ice cores in Antarctica
Grab a coffee, and settle down for a read 👇
www.bas.ac.uk/blogpost/the...
Here's the @aria-research.bsky.social page about the Forecasting Tipping Points programme. It's well worth a proper read!
🌍 www.aria.org.uk/opportunity-...
Here’s the BAS news story about GRAIL - and three other projects involving BAS researchers:
❄️ tinyurl.com/kzhhha6w
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Picture of Antarctic Ice Sheet as seen from plane. Photo by Susan Howard, ESR
A new paper about the Antarctic Ice Sheet in a special issue of @science.org reviews critical knowledge gaps in our understanding of how Antarctica responds to variations in global climate.
Antarctica in 2025: Drivers of deep uncertainty in projected ice loss
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Find out why this is the perfect place for an automatic monitoring station to measure ocean temperature, salinity and currents. It's crucial research about potential sea-level rise: are warming waters melting the ice shelf that holds back the glaciers?
▶️ aapp.shorthandstories.com/fishing-for-...
A new iceberg, ~30x14 km in size, recently calved from the southern end of the George VI Ice Shelf. It's called A84 and is already making quite an impact, bumping into the Stange Ice Shelf over the weekend! These Copernicus Sentinel-1 images from Polar View show the new berg over the last few days.
A satellite image showing lots of meltwater pool on an ice shelf in the centre, and rocky outcrops on the left (west) on Alexander Island, and Palmer Land on the right (east).
Fossil Bluff region on Alexander Island
Hodgson Lake, Citadel Bastion and Corner Cliffs on Alexander Island.
Beautiful Sentinel-2 imagery of George VI Ice Shelf with lots of meltwater from yesterday. The patterns that this water produces is like artwork! Fossil Bluff is shown in the second image, and Hodgson Lake shown in the last - a former subglacial lake sealed under ice thick perennial ice ❄️
🔥New paper alert! 🔥🧪❄️🥼
Ever wondered what to consider when drilling through an ice sheet into rock? We take you through how we chose a drill site in West #Antarctica using field observations, samples, radar survey, modelling & satellite imagery.
tc.copernicus.org/articles/19/... @bas.ac.uk
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Important paper in Nature today about collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. There is a positive isotope anomaly at Skytrain Ice Rise during the last interglacial, consistent with what we found in our high-resolution water-isotope simulations when WAIS collapses.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
The Southern Ocean is a critical part of our planet, exerting profound influences over global climate and ecosystems.
Great to see some of the leading-order priorities for its research elucidated by Earle, @carlosmoffat.com et al.! 🌊🧪🥼❄️
Cover of the report which shows an image of Earth from space
A page from the report which contains images of the polar ice sheet thickness change and a graph of their sea level contribution
Satellites have transformed our understanding of Earths polar regions, and it's wonderful to see the work of The IMBIE Team recognised by @esa.int as a groundbreaking discovery !
tinyurl.com/mtut9dc6
Three people pictured inside the drill shelter with the reaming drill. Derryn Harvie (📷)
Yesterday, 22/1, another step on the way was reached with the second reaming pass completed to target depth of 125 m, widening the hole to 209 mm. This leaves the third pass to go, which will widen to final diameter of 260 mm down to 120 m. Derryn, Daniel and Chelsea pictured (📷D.Harvie).
You can now follow along with the more detailed drilling field diary for MYIC available below, and we will continue posting summary snippets here at bluesky.
www.antarctica.gov.au/science/clim...
