Topic description and stories

Antarctic ice shelves hold twice as much meltwater as previously thought

27 Jun 2024

Slush – water-soaked snow – makes up more than half of all meltwater on the Antarctic ice shelves during the height of summer, yet is poorly...

Read more
Ali Banwell and Laura Stevens installing the time-lapse camera used in this study on the George VI Ice Shelf in Antarctica.

Ice shelves fracture under weight of meltwater lakes

03 May 2024

Heavy pooling meltwater can fracture ice, potentially leading to ice shelf collapse

Read more

Seeking climate justice at the 'world court'

29 Mar 2023

How a Cambridge professor helped the climate-embattled nation of Vanuatu put the question of global warming to the International Court of Justice for...

Read more

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...

Read more

Opinion: Blocking out the sun won’t fix climate change – but it could buy us time

19 Nov 2015

Hugh Hunt (Department of Engineering) discusses whether we could directly engineer the climate and refreeze the poles.

Read more
Bailey's Harbor Boreal Forest & Wetlands

4 degree temperature rise will end vegetation ‘carbon sink’

17 Dec 2013

New research suggests that a temperature increase of 4 degrees is likely to “saturate” areas of dense vegetation with carbon, preventing plants from...

Read more

RRS James Clark Ross

Team sets out to research Antarctic ice loss

09 Sep 2013

Scientists from Cambridge University are joining a team of British researchers embarking on an ambitious mission to the Antarctic to learn more about...

Read more
Initial ISI-MIP simulation showing the effects on vegetation productivity at the highest emissions scenario (reduction: red to yellow; increase: green to blue)

Modelling impacts of a warming world

03 Oct 2012

A community-driven modelling effort aims to quantify one of the gravest of global uncertainties: the impact of global warming on the world’s food...

Read more
Meat

Reducing consumption of red and processed meat could make a major contribution to cutting greenhouse gas emissions

18 Sep 2012

Research quantifies the reduction in greenhouse gases, as well the effect it would have on health, if UK cut amount of red and processed meat eaten...

Read more

Energy city

Cambridge Ideas - The future of energy?

30 Jul 2012

Today, we consume a truly vast amount of energy - with demand continuing to skyrocket at an alarming rate.

Read more
Some of the research being undertaken to measure Arctic tree lines

Invading Trees?

09 Mar 2012

Rumours of trees ‘invading’ the Arctic as a by-product of climate change have been ‘greatly exaggerated’ according to a polar scientist due to...

Read more