NERC Isotope Geosciences Laboratory

Environmental Change > BAS collaboration

BAS collaboration overview

The Antarctic is both a key element in any model of the Earth and its processes as well as a site with unique scientific characteristics. Many of the most important issues facing mankind need to be seen in a global context and in these the Antarctic has a vital role to play. NIGL collaborates with the British Antarctic Survey (www.antarctica.ac.uk) on a number of important topics: Global climate change is one of the most important issues of the 21st century. The effects of a warming atmosphere on the volume and stability of the Antarctic ice cap could have profound effects on world sea levels and on ocean currents. The extent and stability of Antarctic sea ice is important in the stability of the Antarctic Peninsula ice shelves in the past in response to previous climate change is critical to understand.

The ice sheet itself offers us a way of investigating previous climates. It preserves not only the traces of pollutants carried into the Antarctic but also, frozen into the ice, samples of previous rainfall over the past 500 000 years.

The isotope composition of the ice cores tell us about past climates.

Details of other collaborations between NIGL-BAS can be found at:
Chemistry and Past Climate Programme Summary

For further details about NIGL-BAS collaboration, contact Professor Melanie Leng.