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British Antarctic Survey

Name: British Antarctic Survey
Address: High Cross, Madingley Road, Cambridge, CB30, GB
Telephone: +441223221400
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We do polar. Uncovering the secrets of the polar regions, doing science for a sustainable planet. Thanks for your support 👍

We're the UK's polar research institute 👋 Uncovering the secrets of Earth's frozen places, doing science for a sustainable planet.

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28/10/2026

RRS Sir David Attenborough has set sail for another season of science in the Southern Ocean 🚢 The UK's ice-breaker research ship plays a double role: getting people and supplies to our Antarctic research stations, and as a huge floating polar laboratory.

Earlier this year, we caught up with a few of the team working on the ship - what equipment they were using, and how.

This group were measuring major health indicators for the Southern Ocean, adding to long-term data sets that help us see changes. This includes looking at the abundance of tiny creatures and plants at the bottom of the food chain, which sustain the ecosystem and help lock away carbon.

Here's what they had to say ⬇️

🎧 PS. the sound is pretty quiet on this one, you might need to crank up your speakers.

26/10/2026

RRS Sir David Attenborough has departed the UK, and our Twin Otter aircraft have touched down at Rothera Research Station. It must be the start of a new season of Antarctic science! 🚢🛬🇦🇶

The nights may be closing in for the UK, but in Antarctica the start of summer means that dozens of scientists and support staff are arriving at BAS’s five Antarctic research stations.

But what will we be up to?

This year, our science projects cover the oceans, ice and sky, from penguins to POLOMINTS and from tiny microscopic algae to great whales

🔗 Read more about our new season of science in Antarctica at the link in our bio

22/10/2026

Did you know Antarctica is a great place to study space? Our experts study space weather – a fancy term for how solar winds and magnetic energy from the sun interact with Earth’s magnetic field.

Space weather can fry satellite communications, mess up your GPS, and knock out power grids, so keeping an eye on it and understanding it is really important.

We study space weather using massive SuperDARN radars in Antarctica and the Falkland Islands, which connect to a network of other SuperDARN radars around the world. We also run one of only three data centres that collect and redistribute (or ‘mirror’) all this space weather data to other scientists.

That’s why last month’s event in Shanghai was so important. We were invited along to sign the ‘SuperDARN Data Mirror International Cooperation Agreement’, which will:

📈 Scale up high-speed data mirroring from our SuperDARN data centre
🌍 Make it easier for scientists around the world to share and use the data
🤖 Make the data AI-ready for large-scale computer models

While in China, the team were also lucky enough to visit the National Space Science Centre, where the Chinese SuperDARN radars are operated.

Big thanks to our colleagues in China for the whistlestop tour, and to Arianna for capturing the event.

15/10/2026

We're making something very cool for schools. Next month, classes can join a free live lesson about Antarctica, hosted by Julia Bradbury and Gemma Hunt.

We've teamed up with WWF UK and Dynamic Earth to create this online session which focuses on Antarctica’s extreme climate and brilliantly adapted wildlife. There will even be live calls with people working in Antarctica!

🐧 Perfect for pupils aged 7–11 + KS2
📺 Live on Tuesday 10 November at 14:00
🦭 Register your class today!

We'd love as many classes to join us as possible - why not share this post or pass it on to teachers?

🔗 https://www.wwf.org.uk/get-involved/schools/happy-by-nature/live-lessons

14/10/2026

Sometimes, you decide to try something weird in your climate simulation and it reveals important results.

That’s what happened to our ice sheet modeller, Dr Rosie Williams. She decided to turn off ocean warming *entirely* in several climate models, to find out what this reveals about the fast-changes we are seeing in West Antarctica.

These advanced computer models showed predicted ice behaviour on two major glaciers over the course of 150 years, with very different results.

❄️ Pine Island Glacier recovered and started to thicken.
💧 Thwaites Glacier kept losing ice in the 150 years.

📣 Rosie puts it plainly:
“This ice loss cannot be undone or prevented by simply cooling the ocean. We are still seeing the consequences of *past* change play out on Thwaites Glacier.”

Here’s the thing: Thwaites alone holds enough ice to significantly raise sea levels worldwide. The damage from decades of warming is already locked in to some extent.

But this isn’t a reason to give up, it’s a reason to act. We need to prepare for the sea-level rise that’s coming, and cut emissions now to stop adding to the problem as soon as possible.

09/10/2026

This summer, we sent a fleet of robots into one of the most remote places on Earth to help answer a huge climate question.

The GIANT expedition took the UK’s polar ship, the RRS Sir David Attenborough, to a fjord in East Greenland, deploying underwater vehicles, drones and autonomous submarines (including the famous Boaty McBoatface) to study how Greenland’s glaciers are melting into the ocean.

🤔 Why does this matter?
Freshwater from Greenland’s ice sheet could disrupt the ocean currents that help shape Europe’s climate and support marine life across the Atlantic. Right now, scientists don’t have enough data to accurately predict this with certainty.

Over 30 days, the team deployed instruments 523 times, mapped the glacier face 30 times, and completed the first ever Meltstake deployment in Greenland, measuring ice melt just millimetres from the glacier face.

The data gathered will help build better climate models over the next three years, working towards an early warning system for major shifts in ocean circulation.

GIANT is led by British Antarctic Survey and funded by the UK’s Advanced Research + Invention Agency (ARIA).

🔗 Link in bio to find out more

08/10/2026

We have some exciting outreach events coming up over the coming months, with opportunities to learn more about polar science from BAS scientists and staff 🇦🇶

Here's what we've got coming up ➡️

🐻‍❄️ The Royal Society of Biology's webinar Polar Perspectives – Exploring Antarctic Science:

Join BAS researchers at a special webinar to mark Biology Week! Our scientists will explore ocean biodiversity and its weird and wonderful adaptations to extreme conditions, and what Antarctica can tell us about our planet’s past, present, and future.
When: October 16 at 16:00
Where: Online
https://www.bas.ac.uk/event/polar-perspectives-exploring-antarctic-science-royal-society-of-biology-webinar/

🌎 Protecting Our Planet Day (POP26), a livestream event, tailored for secondary schools:

Your class will get to hear from experts at our research stations in Antarctica to find out about how they live and work on the icy continent. Discover the research happening there which is helping us understand how the climate is changing and how that affects the whole of planet Earth. BAS will be taking part in the ‘Protecting Our Ice’ session, scheduled from 11.30am to 12.10pm.
When: November 19 at 11:30
Where: Online
https://www.bas.ac.uk/event/protecting-our-planet-day-2026-livestream-event-for-schools/

🧊 The Royal Geographical Society's Ice Station exhibit:

Ice Station RGS is an immersive evening event bringing together art, geography, science, music, film, literature and exploration to look at ice from every angle and discover what it can tell us about our changing planet.
When: December 3 at 18:00
Where: Royal Geographical Society
https://www.bas.ac.uk/event/british-antarctic-survey-at-ice-station-rgs/

Share this post to help our events reach even more people 🇦🇶🐧

07/10/2026

All is not well on Penguin Mordor. For years, Zavodovski island was the largest penguin colony in the world - but new research has shown it’s lost over 500,000 chinstrap penguins since 2011. That’s over a quarter of the colony.

The team sailed 15 days to reach this remote, volcanic island near Antarctica, using drones, aerial photography and satellite tracking to uncover the scale of the change.

Professor Norman Ratcliffe explains what they found:

🐧 63% decline in occupied chinstrap nests since 2011
⚠️ Chinstraps may now qualify as an ‘Endangered’ species
📈 28% increase in occupied macaroni penguin nests
🥈 It’s no longer the world’s biggest penguin colony

And no, this isn’t happening because the penguins are nesting on an active volcano.

The waters are warming with climate change, and the two species have different temperature preferences.

Chinstraps forage in cooler waters west of the island - chasing Antarctic krill, their main prey, as it retreats south into the colder Weddell Sea. But with no land to breed on out there, they're left with a difficult choice: follow their food into unsuitable habitat, or stay and risk starving.

Macaroni penguins, with their broader diet of fish and crustaceans, have been able to adapt by foraging in the warmer waters to the east instead.

The findings represent the biggest change to an animal community ever recorded in a single location in Antarctica.

06/10/2026

Everybody wants a bit of Antarctic krill: whales, seals, penguins... and humans 🦐

Antarctic krill are no bigger than your thumb, but the whole krill population weighs about as much as the entire human population. They are the unsung heroes of our oceans and climate, and they need protecting:

🐧 The Antarctic ecosystem depends on them
♻️ Krill help store carbon in the deep ocean
🎣 They are increasingly targeted by the fishing industry

As international negotiators gather in Hobart this month to decide how the Southern Ocean is managed, three British Antarctic Survey scientists sat down with us to explain how UK science helps inform the decisions that shape the future of Antarctic krill.

🔗 to our krill long read in the comments

Address

High Cross, Madingley Road
Cambridge
CB30

Opening Hours

Monday	9am - 5:30pm
Tuesday	9am - 5:30pm
Wednesday	9am - 5:30pm
Thursday	9am - 5:30pm
Friday	9am - 5:30pm

Telephone

+441223221400

Website

https://www.bas.ac.uk/

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