̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - British Antarctic Survey

Under the bonnet at Dawn, the UK's fastest AI supercomputer

hcf38 — Mon, 17 Mar 2025 15:58:08 +0000

How AI supercomputer, Dawn, is being used to tackle some of the most pressing issues facing humanity.

Historic fires trapped in Antarctic ice yield key information for climate models

cmm201 — Fri, 09 Aug 2024 15:25:07 +0000

Researchers from the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and the British Antarctic Survey tracked fire activity over the past 150 years by measuring carbon monoxide trapped in Antarctic ice. This gas is released, along with smoke and particulates, by wildfires, cooking and communal fires.

̽��ֱ��findings, reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, reveal that biomass burning has been more variable since the 1800s than had been thought. ̽��ֱ��new data could help improve climate models, which rely on information about past atmospheric gases, such as carbon monoxide, to improve their forecasts.

“We’ve been missing key information from the period when humans started to dramatically alter Earth’s climate; information needed to test and develop climate models,” said Rachael Rhodes, senior author of the paper from Cambridge’s Department of Earth Sciences.

̽��ֱ��new carbon monoxide record fills that gap in time. ̽��ֱ��researchers charted the strength of biomass burning between 1821 and 1995 by measuring carbon monoxide in ice cores from Antarctica. ̽��ֱ��layers of ice inside these cores formed when snow was buried under subsequent years’ snowfall, encasing pockets of air that directly sample the atmosphere's composition at the time.

“It’s rare to find trace gases trapped in ice cores for the most recent decades,” said Ivo Strawson, lead author of the study who is jointly based at Cambridge Earth Sciences and the British Antarctic Survey. “We need information on the atmosphere's composition following the onset of industrialisation to reduce uncertainties in climate models, which rely on these records to test or drive their simulations.”

A major difficulty with taking gas measurements from very young ice is that pressurised air bubbles haven’t had time to form under the weight of more snow, said Strawson. To get around this problem, the researchers studied ice from locations where snow accumulates rapidly. These ice cores, held in BAS’ dedicated Ice Core Laboratory, were collected from the Antarctic Peninsula as part of previous international projects.

To measure carbon monoxide, the researchers developed a state-of-the-art analysis method, which melts ice continuously while simultaneously extracting the air. They collected tens of thousands of gas measurements for the past 150 years.

̽��ֱ��researchers found that the strength of biomass burning has dropped steadily since the 1920s. That decline, said Rhodes, coincides with the expansion and intensification of agriculture in southern Africa, South America, and Australia during the early 20th century. With wildlands converted into farmland, forest cover was restricted and in turn fire activity dropped. “This trend reflects how land conversion and human expansion have negatively impacted landscapes and ecosystems, causing a major shift in the natural fire regime and in turn altering our planet’s carbon cycle,” said Rhodes.

One assumption made by many climate models, including those used by the IPCC, is that fire activity has increased in tandem with population growth. But, said Rhodes, “our work adds to a growing mass of evidence that this assumption is wrong, and the inventories of historic fire activity need to be corrected so that models can accurately replicate the variability we see in our record.”

Rachael Rhodes is a Fellow of Wolfson College, Cambridge.

Reference:
Ivo Strawson et al. "Preindustrial Southern Hemisphere biomass burning variability inferred from ice core carbon monoxide records." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences(2024). DOI: https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2402868121

Pollutants preserved in Antarctic ice document historic fires in the Southern Hemisphere, offering a glimpse at how humans have impacted the landscape and providing data that could help scientists understand future climate change.

̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge

Rachael Rhodes

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright © ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified. All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

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Ice cores provide first documentation of rapid Antarctic ice loss in the past

cmm201 — Thu, 08 Feb 2024 10:00:00 +0000

̽��ֱ��evidence, contained within an ice core, shows that in one location the ice sheet thinned by 450 metres — that’s more than the height of the Empire State Building — in just under 200 years.

This is the first evidence anywhere in Antarctica for such a fast loss of ice. Scientists are worried that today’s rising temperatures might destabilize parts of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet in the future, potentially passing a tipping point and inducing a runaway collapse. ̽��ֱ��study, published in Nature Geoscience, sheds light on how quickly Antarctic ice could melt if temperatures continue to soar.

“We now have direct evidence that this ice sheet suffered rapid ice loss in the past,” said Professor Eric Wolff, senior author of the new study from Cambridge’s Department of Earth Sciences. “This scenario isn’t something that exists only in our model predictions and it could happen again if parts of this ice sheet become unstable.”

From west to east, the Antarctic ice sheets contain enough freshwater to raise global sea levels by around 57 metres. ̽��ֱ��West Antarctic Ice Sheet is considered particularly vulnerable because much of it sits on bedrock below sea level.

Model predictions suggest that a large part of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet could disappear in the next few centuries, causing sea levels to rise. Exactly when and how quickly the ice could be lost is, however, uncertain.

One way to train ice sheet models to make better predictions is to feed them with data on ice loss from periods of warming in Earth’s history. At the peak of the Last Ice Age 20,000 years ago, Antarctic ice covered a larger area than today. As our planet thawed and temperatures slowly climbed, the West Antarctic Ice Sheet contracted to more or less its current extent.

“We wanted to know what happened to the West Antarctic Ice Sheet at the end of the Last Ice Age, when temperatures on Earth were rising, albeit at a slower rate than current anthropogenic warming,” said Dr Isobel Rowell, study co-author from the British Antarctic Survey. “Using ice cores we can go back to that time and estimate the ice sheet’s thickness and extent.”

Ice cores are made up of layers of ice that formed as snow fell and was then buried and compacted into ice crystals over thousands of years. Trapped within each ice layer are bubbles of ancient air and contaminants that mixed with each year’s snowfall — providing clues as to the changing climate and ice extent.

̽��ֱ��researchers drilled a 651-metre-long ice core from Skytrain Ice Rise in 2019. This mound of ice sits at the edge of the ice sheet, near the point where grounded ice flows into the floating Ronne Ice Shelf.

After transporting the ice cores to Cambridge at -20C, the researchers analysed them to reconstruct the ice thickness. First, they measured stable water isotopes, which indicate the temperature at the time the snow fell. Temperature decreases at higher altitudes (think of cold mountain air), so they could equate warmer temperatures with lower-lying, thinner ice.

They also measured the pressure of air bubbles trapped in the ice. Like temperature, air pressure also varies systematically with elevation. Lower-lying, thinner ice contains higher-pressure air bubbles.

These measurements told them that ice thinned rapidly 8,000 years ago. “Once the ice thinned, it shrunk really fast,” said Wolff, “this was clearly a tipping point — a runaway process.”

They think this thinning was probably triggered by warm water getting underneath the edge of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, which normally sits on bedrock. This likely untethered a section of the ice from bedrock, allowing it to float suddenly and forming what is now the Ronne Ice Shelf. This allowed neighbouring Skytrain Ice Rise, no longer restrained by grounded ice, to thin rapidly.

̽��ֱ��researchers also found that the sodium content of the ice (originating from salt in sea spray) increased about 300 years after the ice thinned. This told them that, after the ice thinned, the ice shelf shrunk back so that the sea was hundreds of kilometres nearer to their site.

“We already knew from models that the ice thinned around this time, but the date of this was uncertain,” said Rowell. Ice sheet models placed the retreat anywhere between 12,000 and 5,000 years ago and couldn’t say how quickly it happened. “We now have a very precisely dated observation of that retreat that can be built into improved models,” said Rowell.

Although the West Antarctic Ice Sheet retreated quickly 8,000 years ago, it stabilised when it reached roughly its current extent. “It’s now crucial to find out whether extra warmth could destabilise the ice and cause it to start retreating again,” said Wolff.

Reference

Grieman et al. (2024) Abrupt Holocene ice loss due to thinning and ungrounding in the Weddell Sea Embayment. Nature Geoscience. DOI: 10.1038/s41561-024-01375-8

Researchers from the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and the British Antarctic Survey have uncovered the first direct evidence that the West Antarctic Ice Sheet shrunk suddenly and dramatically at the end of the Last Ice Age, around 8,000 years ago.

̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge / British Antarctic Survey

Tents at Skytrain Ice Rise

Yes

World’s most threatened seabirds visit remote plastic pollution hotspots

jg533 — Tue, 04 Jul 2023 15:00:00 +0000

̽��ֱ��extensive study assessed the movements of 7,137 individual birds from 77 species of petrel, a group of wide-ranging migratory seabirds including the Northern Fulmar and European Storm-petrel, and the Critically Endangered Newell’s Shearwater.

This is the first time that tracking data for so many seabird species has been combined and overlaid onto global maps of plastic distribution in the oceans.

̽��ֱ��results show that plastic pollution threatens marine life on a scale that transcends national boundaries: a quarter of all plastic exposure risk occurs in the high seas. This is largely linked to gyres - large systems of rotating ocean currents - where vast accumulations of plastics form, fed by waste entering the sea from boats, and from many different countries.

Seabirds often mistake small plastic fragments for food, or ingest plastic that has already been eaten by their prey. This can lead to injury, poisoning and starvation, and petrels are particularly vulnerable because they can’t easily regurgitate the plastic. In the breeding season they often inadvertently feed plastic to their chicks.

Plastics can also contain toxic chemicals that can be harmful to seabirds.

Petrels are an understudied but vulnerable group of marine species, which play a key role in oceanic food webs. ̽��ֱ��breadth of their distribution across the whole ocean makes them important ‘sentinel species’ when assessing the risks of plastic pollution in the marine environment.

“Ocean currents cause big swirling collections of plastic rubbish to accumulate far from land, way out of sight and beyond the jurisdiction of any one country. We found that many species of petrel spend considerable amounts of time feeding around these mid-ocean gyres, which puts them at high risk of ingesting plastic debris,” said Lizzie Pearmain, a PhD student at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge’s Department of Zoology and the British Antarctic Survey, and joint corresponding author of the study.

She added: “When petrels eat plastic, it can get stuck in their stomachs and be fed to their chicks. This leaves less space for food, and can cause internal injuries or release toxins.”

Petrels and other species are already threatened with extinction due to climate change, bycatch, competition with fisheries, and invasive species such as mice and rats on their breeding colonies. ̽��ֱ��researchers say exposure to plastics may reduce the birds’ resilience to these other threats.

̽��ֱ��north-east Pacific, South Atlantic, and the south-west Indian oceans have mid-ocean gyres full of plastic waste, where many species of threatened seabird forage.

“Even species with low exposure risk have been found to eat plastic. This shows that plastic levels in the ocean are a problem for seabirds worldwide, even outside of these high exposure areas,” said Dr Bethany Clark, Seabird Science Officer at BirdLife International and joint corresponding author of the study.

She added: “Many petrel species risk exposure to plastic in the waters of several countries and the high seas during their migrations. Due to ocean currents, this plastic debris often ends up far away from its original source. This highlights the need for international cooperation to tackle plastic pollution in the world’s oceans.”

̽��ֱ��study also found that the Mediterranean Sea and the Black Sea together account for over half of petrels’ global plastic exposure risk. However, only four species of petrel forage in these enclosed, busy areas.

̽��ֱ��study was led by a partnership between the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, BirdLife International and the British Antarctic Survey, in collaboration with Fauna & Flora International, the 5 Gyres Institute, and over 200 seabird researchers in 27 countries.

It was published on 4 July in the journal Nature Communications.

To get their results, the researchers overlaid global location data, taken from tracking devices attached to the birds, onto pre-existing maps of marine plastic distribution. This allowed them to identify the areas on the birds’ migration and foraging journeys where they are most likely to encounter plastics.

Species were given an ‘exposure risk score’ to indicate their risk of encountering plastic during their time at sea. A number of already threatened species scored highly, including the Critically Endangered Balearic Shearwater, which breeds in the Mediterranean, and Newell’s Shearwater, endemic to Hawaii.

Another Endangered species, the Hawaiian Petrel also scored high for plastic exposure risk, as did three species classified by the IUCN as Vulnerable: the Yelkouan Shearwater, which breeds in the Mediterranean; Cook’s Petrel, which breeds in New Zealand, and the Spectacled Petrel, which only breeds on an extinct volcano called Inaccessible Island, part of the Tristan da Cunha archipelago, a UK Overseas Territory.

“While the population-level effects of plastic exposure are not yet known for most species, many petrels and other marine species are already in a precarious situation. Continued exposure to potentially dangerous plastics adds to the pressures,” said Professor Andrea Manica at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge’s Department of Zoology, a co-author of the study.

He added: “This study is a big leap forward in understanding the situation, and our results will feed into conservation work to try and address the threats to birds at sea.”

̽��ֱ��research was funded by the Cambridge Conservation Initiative’s Collaborative Fund for Conservation, sponsored by the Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation, and the Natural Environment Research Council.

Reference

Clark, B.L. et al.: ‘Global assessment of marine plastic exposure risk for oceanic birds.’ Nature Communications, July 2023. DOI: 10.1038/s41467-023-38900-z

Analysis of global tracking data for 77 species of petrel has revealed that a quarter of all plastics potentially encountered in their search for food are in remote international waters – requiring international collaboration to address.

Ocean currents cause big swirling collections of plastic rubbish to accumulate far from land

Lizzie Pearmain

Beth Clark

Northern Fulmar bird in flight

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright © ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified. All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – as here, on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

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Attribution

Darwin Lectures

ps748 — Wed, 18 Jan 2023 13:57:06 +0000

Isolation is the theme of the 2023 Lecture Series

Exploring Antarctica in Cambridge

zs332 — Fri, 01 Apr 2022 11:08:48 +0000

In its inaugural year in 2021, the Cambridge Festival managed to reach every continent on Earth - except Antarctica. So, for 2022, we’ve brought Antarctica to Cambridge. While you're here, learn about some of the world-leading research happening here in Cambridge.

Invasive species ‘hitchhiking’ on ships threaten Antarctica’s ecosystems

jg533 — Mon, 10 Jan 2022 20:33:31 +0000

Marine life hitching a ride on ocean-crossing ships poses a threat to Antarctica’s pristine ecosystems, with the potential for invasive species to arrive from almost anywhere across the globe.

̽��ֱ��Royal Society announces election of new Fellows 2021

cg605 — Thu, 06 May 2021 10:48:11 +0000

Over 60 outstanding scientists from all over the globe have joined the Royal Society as Fellows and Foreign Members. ̽��ֱ��distinguished group of scientists consists of 52 Fellows, 10 Foreign Members and one Honorary Fellow and were all selected for their exceptional contributions to science.

̽��ֱ��Royal Society is a self-governing Fellowship made up of the most eminent scientists, engineers and technologists from the UK and the Commonwealth. Its Foreign Members are drawn from the rest of the world.

̽��ֱ��Society’s fundamental purpose is to recognise, promote, and support excellence in science and to encourage the development and use of science for the benefit of humanity.

“ ̽��ֱ��global pandemic has demonstrated the continuing importance of scientific thinking and collaboration across borders,” said President of the Royal Society, Sir Adrian Smith.

“Each Fellow and Foreign Member bring their area of scientific expertise to the Royal Society and when combined, this expertise supports the use of science for the benefit of humanity.

“Our new Fellows and Foreign Members are all at the forefronts of their fields from molecular genetics and cancer research to tropical open ecosystems and radar technology. It is an absolute pleasure and honour to have them join us.”

̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge:

Professor Julie Ahringer FMedSci FRS

Director and a Senior Group Leader of the Gurdon Institute

Professor Ahringer has made wide-ranging contributions to molecular genetics through her work on the nematode C. elegans. She carried out the first systematic inactivation of all the genes in any animal, which pioneered genome-wide reverse genetic screening.

Her research has illuminated our understanding of the processes underlying cell polarity and gene expression. This includes showing that spindle positioning is controlled by heterotrimeric G protein signalling, discovering a connection between chromatin marking and mRNA splicing, and most recently revealing mechanisms and principles of genome organisation and gene expression regulation.

“I am honoured to be elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society,” said Ahringer. “Much of science today is done in teams, and this reflects the tremendous contributions of my past and present lab members.”

Professor Sadaf Farooqi FRCP FMedSci FRS

Wellcome Principal Research Fellow and Professor of Metabolism and Medicine, Wellcome-MRC Institute of Metabolic Science

Professor Farooqi is distinguished for her discoveries of fundamental mechanisms that control human energy homeostasis and their disruption in obesity. Farooqi discovered that the leptin-melanocortin system regulates appetite and weight in people and that genetic mutations affecting this pathway cause severe obesity. Findings by her team have directly led to diagnostic testing for genetic obesity syndromes world-wide and enabled life-saving treatment for some people with severe obesity.

Farooqi said: “As a clinician scientist, I am absolutely delighted to be elected to the Fellowship of the Royal Society. This prestigious honour recognises the work of many team members past and present, our network of collaborators across the world and the patients and their families who have contributed to our research.”

Professor Usha Goswami CBE FBA FRS

Professor of Cognitive Developmental Neuroscience, Department of Psychology, and Director of the Centre for Neuroscience in Education

Professor Goswami has pioneered the application of neuroscience to education. Her research investigates the sensory and neural basis of childhood disorders of language and literacy, which are heritable and found across languages. Goswami's research shows a shared sensory and neural basis in auditory rhythmic processing. ̽��ֱ��acoustic ‘landmarks’ for speech rhythm provide automatic triggers for aligning speech rhythms and brain rhythms, and Goswami has shown that this automatic process can be disrupted, thereby disrupting speech encoding for these children.

“It is a huge honour to be elected to the Royal Society and a wonderful acknowledgement of our research in the Centre for Neuroscience in Education,” said Goswami. “I have been interested in children's reading and language development since training as a primary school teacher, and we have used neuroscientific insights to understand the mechanisms underpinning developmental language disorders. It is fantastically rewarding for our work to be recognised in this way.”

Professor Rebecca Kilner FRS

Professor of Evolutionary Biology and Director of the ̽��ֱ�� Museum of Zoology

Professor Kilner researches the evolution of animal behaviour, and how this behaviour then affects the pace and scope of subsequent evolutionary change. Using experimental evolution, her current work investigates how quickly populations can adapt when environmental conditions change.

Kilner discovered novel ways in which social behaviour drives evolutionary change. She used elegant cross-fostering experiments in birds and insects to expose how family members exert selection on each other, and discovered hidden evolutionary conflicts between parents and their offspring, and among adults caring together for offspring.

Kilner said: “I’m astonished, honoured and delighted to be elected to the Fellowship of the Royal Society. This honour is shared with everyone I have ever worked with. Science is a team effort and I’ve been incredibly lucky to collaborate with brilliant colleagues throughout my career.”

Professor David Rowitch FMedSci FRS

Professor and Head of the Department of Paediatrics, Wellcome Trust Senior Investigator

Professor Rowitch’s basic and translational research on glial cells, comprising 90% of cells in the human brain, has been transformative. Rowitch’s established how embryonic central nervous patterning specifies myelinating oligodendrocytes through essential functions of Olig2, a study that helped initiate genetic methodologies in glial biology, and how astrocyte functional diversification is critical for support of neural circuits in the spinal cord. He has applied a developmental neuroscience perspective to better understand human neonatal brain development and white matter injury in premature infants, multiple sclerosis and leukodystrophy.

Rowitch said: “It is a great honour to be elected to the Fellowship of the Royal Society, joining many of my esteemed Cambridge, and other scientific, colleagues.”

Professor Richard Samworth FRS

Professor of Statistical Science and Director of the Statistical Laboratory

Professor Samworth has made fundamental contributions to the development of modern statistical methodology and theory. His research concerns the development of statistical methods and theory to address contemporary data challenges, often posed by the large volumes of data that are routinely collected in today's Big Data era.

“I was incredibly honoured when I found out I'd been elected a Fellow of the Royal Society,” said Samworth. “It's a real thrill to become a small part of such a respected institution.”

Professor Benjamin Simons FRS

Royal Society EP Abraham Professor, Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics and Senior Group Leader of the Gurdon Institute

As a theorist, Professor Simons has contributed to a diverse range of fields, from quantum condensed matter physics to developmental and cancer biology. His research translates concepts and approaches from statistical physics to gain predictive insights in the collective dynamics of complex systems. In biology, his studies have revealed common mechanisms of stem cell regulation, and how these programmes become subverted during the early phase of tumour growth.

Simons said: “I am delighted to be elected to the Fellowship. I hope that my election may serve to emphasise the value of multidisciplinary research that stands at the interface between physics and the life sciences.”

Wellcome Sanger Institute:

Dr Peter Campbell FMedSci FRS, Head, Cancer, Ageing, and Somatic Mutations Programme, Wellcome Sanger Institute (and Wellcome-MRC Stem Cell Institute, ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge).

MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology:

Dr Christopher Tate FRS, MRC Investigator, MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology

Dr Sjors Scheres FRS, Group Leader, Structural Studies Division, MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology

British Antarctic Survey:

Professor Dame Jane Francis DCMG FRS, Director, British Antarctic Survey

Professor Richard Horne FRS, Head, Space Weather and Atmosphere, British Antarctic Survey

Cambridge scientists are among the new Fellows announced today by the Royal Society.

Our new Fellows and Foreign Members are all at the forefronts of their fields from molecular genetics and cancer research to tropical open ecosystems and radar technology.

Sir Adrian Smith, President of the Royal Society

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright © ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified. All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – as here, on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

Yes