Topic description and stories

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...

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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...

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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...

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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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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...

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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...

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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...

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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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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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This photograph is a composite image made by Ponting to capture the desolation of the Polar Party.

Final letters mark centenary of Scott’s last march

12 Nov 2012

A new collection of the last letters of Captain Scott and the Pole Party has been released to mark the centenary of the discovery of their bodies in...

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Detail from ‘Lost on the Ice Caps’ by Albert Operdi

Dreaming polar lands with the haunted and damned

31 Oct 2012

The Scott Polar Research Institute invites you to take a trip through the psychic hinterlands of Polar exploration for this year’s Festival of Ideas...

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Foundering in soft snow: Bowers' sledge team; Wilson pushing; Oates and PO Evans repairing, Beardmore Glacier, 13 December 1911

Celebrating the centenary of Captain Scott reaching the South Pole

17 Jan 2012

Tuesday 17 January 2012 marks the 100th anniversary of the first British team reaching the South Pole. Founded as a memorial to Captain Scott and his...

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