National Capability is long-term, strategic science spanning decades, which enables the development of exciting step changes in techniques and technologies. The ongoing development and maintenance of these capabilities makes a much wider portfolio of environmental science possible.

The UK Polar Research Expertise for Science and Society (PRESCIENT), a British Antarctic Survey (BAS)/CPOM partnership, provides the UK and wider scientific community with the necessary infrastructure and data to support research into the polar regions. Through PRESCIENT, scientists provide essential advice to Government to inform policy and help prepare for the effects of climate-related changes.

In this first annual meeting of PRESCIENT, introduced by Professor Dominic Hodgson, interim Director of Science at BAS, and Professor Andrew Shepherd, CPOM Director, we heard from scientists across the programme on exciting advances and achievements in polar climate data records, long-term observations of ecosystems in regions of the Southern Ocean, sea-level Rise science and the Space Weather Observatory.

We also heard from Sophie Hodgson (Associate Director for National Capability, NERC) about the importance of National Capability to UK science and research: “you can’t understand trends and what is happening in the world if they’re not being observed over long periods of time.”

This broad programme of work supports and underpins research into how environmental change is affecting the polar regions, how this in turn leads to global sea-level rise, and space weather impacts measured from Antarctica.

The PRESCIENT programme is funded by NERC’s National Capability Single Centre Science and National Public Good initiatives.

You can read more about this Programme on the British Antarctic Survey website.

CryoSat-2 was successfully launched by the European Space Agency fifteen years ago today on 8th April 2010.

To mark the day, we’ve put together this short history of CryoSat-2 and how this fantastic satellite mission has contributed to polar science.

The original CryoSat-1 mission was proposed by CPOM’s Founder, Sir Duncan Wingham, in 1998 and launched in 2005; however, a programming issue with the rocket meant that this satellite was lost immediately after launch.

Its successor, CryoSat-2 was launched in in 2010 with CPOM Director Andy Shepherd as the mission’s Principal Scientific Advisor. CryoSat-2 was designed to last approximately 5 years, but it is still in orbit today and the mission has now been extended until 2028.

CryoSat-2 uses a radar instrument called SIRAL (Synthetic Aperture Interferometric Radar Altimeter), designed to measure Earth’s land and sea ice. It can measure changes at the margins of vast ice sheets and floating ice in polar oceans. SIRAL can not only detect tiny variations in the height of the ice but also measure sea level with unprecedented accuracy.

Here are just some of the ways CPOM has used CryoSat data in the last fifteen years:

Monitoring ice sheet mass balance

The CPOM-led IMBIE Project (Ice Sheet Mass Balance Intercomparison Project) provides a long-term record of polar ice sheet melting in Greenland and Antarctica from community submitted estimates derived from satellite observations. Taking advantage of data from missions including CryoSat-2, IMBIE has made it possible to chart polar ice sheet mass change every year, ensuring the scientific community has the very latest estimates.

Understand the dynamics of sea ice

This recent research led by CPOM Associate Investigator Harry Heorton, uses the “consistent, good coverage” sea ice thickness data from CryoSat-2 to give an estimate of sea ice volume from 2010 – 2022. Take a look at this ESA article to find out more.

Detecting changes in the subglacial lakes

Led by CPOM Associate Investigator Noel Gourmelen (The University of Edinburgh & Earthwave), this research on sudden drainage events of subglacial lakes uses European Space Agency – ESA CryoSat-2 data, combined with computer models of glacier flow and ocean currents through the ESA FutureEO Science for Society 4D Antarctica project.

Improving climate models

Data from CryoSat-2, and other Earth observation missions, helps scientists to project future changes to the Earth’s ice and its impact on sea level rise by providing boundary conditions for numerical models and improving understanding of key ice loss mechanisms. CryoSat-2 data has been used in simulations from computer models such as BISICLES , which has been integrated into the UK Earth System Model (UKESM) as well as used in the Ice Sheet Model Intercomparison Project for CMIP6 (ISMIP6).

Visit the CPOM data portal to see CryoSat measurements of sea ice, ice sheets, ice shelves and ice velocity.

Image credit: ESA / AOES Medialab