Over recent decades, scientists have tracked ice loss in Antarctica through satellite missions, but satellites cannot monitor what is happening at bedrock level below the ice, or under ice shelves, where rapid changes are being driven by interactions between the ice and ocean.
The report identifies that gathering more direct observations of coastal bed topography and sub-ice shelf cavities could support more accurate ice sheet modelling.
CPOM’s Professor Andrew Shepherd, Dr Inès Otosaka and Dr Tom Slater (Northumbria University) contributed a chapter on current understanding of ice sheet mass balance.
“Advances in satellite technology allow us to reliably track Antarctic mass change. But satellites cannot see beneath the ice to the bedrock below or to the ocean cavities under the floating ice shelves, both of which ultimately control how fast ice flows into the sea. This gap between what we can measure from space and what ice sheet models need to know about Antarctica’s coast is one of the primary sources of uncertainty in sea level projections. The good news is that this is a solvable problem. Internationally coordinated surveys, exactly like those set out by the RINGS report, can close these knowledge gaps. That matters at a time when tighter Antarctic sea level projections are essential for planning effective coastal adaptation and defence strategies”.
Dr Tom Slater
Research Fellow: Land Ice Earth Observation CPOM/Northumbria University
The authors of the report call for international coordination of Antarctic coastal surveys to ensure the collection of consistent and comprehensive data to ensure we can continue to improve our projections on sea level rise.
“Getting your hands out of your gloves to operate a touchscreen, tighten screws, or peer at snow crystals through a handheld magnifying lens. All while wearing multiple layers and ensuring not to expose your hands for too long, was probably the hardest part of the work” says Alicia Fallows, a CPOM affiliated PhD researcher at UCL who spent ten days at the The Copernicus Expansion Missions Sea Ice Experiment (CEMSIE) campaign in Cambridge Bay, Canada in April 2026.
With temperatures ranging from -5°C to -20°C and colder still with wind chill, dressed for the elements in heavy fieldwork gear, and long days capturing and recording vital data fieldwork can be an exhausting experience. Despite this, Alicia was keen to get back out on the ice every day. As part of a team made up mostly of Early Career researchers, “everyone was enthusiastic, willing to help each other, and was genuinely excited to be there!”
Snow on sea ice in a warming Arctic
The Arctic is warming faster than the global average and this is impacting Arctic sea ice. A 2024 CPOM UCL study found that Arctic sea ice in coastal regions may be thinning up to twice as fast as previously thought.
Satellites offer the only means of observing sea ice at scale, but the accuracy of retrievals depends on how well we understand what they are measuring.
Sea ice, and the snowpack sitting on top of it, remains one of the most challenging components of the cryosphere to characterise accurately because sea ice and snow are both changeable, and this impacts our ability to accurately retrieve sea ice properties from satellite observations.
As snow depth, density, salinity and microstructure all potentially influence microwave scattering signatures, uncertainties remain in satellite retrievals. We need to ensure the methods and assumptions we use to retrieve information about sea ice from space are correct.
The CEMSIE campaign – what it is and why it’s important
The CEMSIE campaign aims to reduce those uncertainties ahead of the launch of the ESA missions CIMR, CRISTAL and ROSE-L, bringing together scientists from a range of institutions across Canada and Europe to collect in-situ measurements to improve the retrieval methods used by the future missions.
Cambridge Bay offers stable, representative first-year sea ice (the ice that forms each winter and melts each summer) in conditions that are accessible for the large, multi-week campaign. Unlike sea ice that drifts with ocean currents, the ice here remains in the same place, allowing for repeated measurements at the same location.
An average day in the CEMSIE camp
Over 6 weeks, teams of researchers including Alicia, collected daily measurements of snowpack and sea ice properties – information that will directly inform instrument development for CIMR, CRISTAL and ROSE-L. Tasks were rotated so everyone got a chance to experience using different technologies.
“One person might manage the scatterometers, turning on each radar, putting on the generators, and initiating the scans via a laptop. Another would take on the main snow pit: a full day’s work in itself, involving a wide array of instruments to measure snow properties.
For example, we took density measurements and assessed the specific surface area of the snow using various instruments. Salinity was measured from bagged snow samples. All data was carefully recorded on a standardised snow pit sheet. Other regular tasks included taking ice cores and ice thickness measurements every few days, and setting up the passive radiometers – which needed to be switched on and configured each morning.”
Overnight temperatures can fall dramatically, possibly producing measurably different radar returns from the snow, so team members could also volunteer to work overnight to capture diurnal variations in the snowpack, keeping the scatterometers running and measuring temperature changes in the pack by digging snowpits.
Once back at camp, after unpacking, cleaning and drying the equipment, and having dinner (made by whoever was on a ‘rest day’) the work was still not over, and the team could find themselves working late into the evening.
“After dinner, there was always a team meeting, which could run until eight or nine in the evening sharing successes, challenges, and planning for the next day. After that, there was usually data to upload, field notes to digitise, and lab measurements to begin before they piled up. Most nights, we wouldn’t be done until ten or eleven. Then it was straight to sleep, and up to do it all again. We did find an evening for a team film night!”
While there, Alicia captured a typical day in the life of an Early Career researcher at CEMSIE in a 90 second video. For best view, open to full screen.
Aside from the daily campaign tasks, Alicia also got the opportunity to go on a full site transect (a circuit of approximately two kilometres around the camp) using additional instruments like the magnaprobe, which you push down into the snow to measure depth, as well as an excursion to an area with dramatic ice ridging. Supported by colleagues, she also got the chance to complete her own experiment supporting her PhD research into a process called flooding, which occurs when seawater infiltrates into the snowpack.
“I dug down to the sea ice surface and artificially created a flooding event – pumping seawater into a channel cut into the ice, effectively creating a small, contained pool. I then dug a series of snow pits at increasing distances from the flood site to track how far the water moved through the snow. We also set up one of the passive microwave instruments beside the site to monitor any changes in the radar return as the water spread. It was a genuinely exciting set of experiments to run!”
What is Copernicus and CRISTAL?
Copernicus is the Earth observation component of the European Union’s Space Programme, led by the European Commission (EC) and implemented in partnership with the European Space Agency (ESA). ESA develops and manages the space element, which is built around the Sentinel satellite missions and provides open-access data to support understanding and mitigation planning of the effects of climate change.
The Copernicus Polar Ice and Snow Topography Altimeter (CRISTAL) mission is due to be launched in 2027, equipped with a dual-frequency Interferometric Radar altimeter for Ice and Snow (IRIS) and a passive microwave radiometer, satellite instruments similar to the in-situ devices used by Alicia and the other researchers. This data can be compared to current ice EO missions, CryoSat-2, Sentinel-3 and ICESat-2 and inform instrument design with CRISTAL.
Alicia’s day-in-the-life film offers a window into what ground truth looks like in practice – very long days, keeping instruments running in sub-zero temperatures, and carefully recording data before the next task begins. For the early career researchers, the campaign delivers on three fronts: rigorous contributions to pre-launch validation for future space missions, invaluable field data to support their own research, and networking with international colleagues in a unique environment.
Most importantly, the campaign will mean more accurate retrievals and increasingly robust assessments of sea ice, and better-informed planning for future ice behaviour in a warming planet.
Alicia Fallows is based at UCL in the Department of Earth Sciences, and was supported to attend the CEMSIE fieldwork campaign by Julienne Stroeve and CEMSIE. Her PhD is funded by the London NERC DTP.
The CEMSIE campaign is funded by the European Space Agency SUPFIX-Polar funding call.
With thanks to the Canadian High Arctic Research Station (CHARS) facilities and support.
Here are some CPOM highlight talks and posts featured at the EGU General Assembly in Vienna (3 – 8 May 2026).
Monday 4 May
Presentations
Lauren Gregoire presenting Northern Hemisphere ice-sheet dynamics during the last two deglaciations: responses to gradual and abrupt climate changes – 14:05–14:15 (CEST), Room L2.
Yiliang Ma presenting The Role of a Dynamic Greenland Ice Sheet in Future Climate: Insights from Multi-Centennial Coupled UKESM Simulations – 17:00–17:10 (CEST), Room L2.
Tuesday 5 May
Presentation
Benjamin Graves presenting High-Altitude Himalayan Meltwater Contributions Revealed by Isotopic Analysis – 11:55–12:05 (CEST), Room 3.29/30.
Wednesday 6 May
Poster
Mal McMillan’s poster on Cryo-TEMPO: a CryoSat-2 Thematic Product over Land Ice – 14:00–15:45 (CEST), Hall X5 | X5.185.
Thursday 7 May
Posters
Emily Glen’s poster Continental-scale mapping of Antarctic supraglacial hydrology using machine learning (Hall X5 | X5.235).
Luca Bianchi’s poster Modelling the Geomorphology and Hydrology of Supraglacial Meltwater Channels (Hall X5 | X5.238).
Diego Moral Pombo’s poster Optimising detection of Greenland’s active subglacial lakes with DEMs: evaluating coregistration and detrending strategies (Hall X5 | X5.246).
All at 14:00–15:45 (CEST) in Hall X5.
Friday 8 May
Presentations
Karla Boxall presenting A framework for evaluating ice-sheet-wide altimetry uncertainty estimates – 14:35–14:45 (CEST) in Room L2.
Joe Phillips presenting Extracting Swath Elevation Information from Non-Interferometric Radar Altimetry using Probabilistic Deep Learning – 14:45–14:55 (CEST) in Room L2.
Rosie Willatt presenting Polarimetric Synthetic Aperture Radar Altimeter (PoSARA): progress towards a new Earth Observation mission concept for snow depth and cryosphere remote sensing – 08:35–08:55 (CEST), Room 1.34.
Posters
Penny Coulthard’s poster Comparing stress and deformation characteristics of sea ice using continuum and discrete element models (Hall X5 | X5.222)
Danny Feltham’s poster Melting, freezing and dynamics of Arctic sea ice: pack ice versus marginal ice zone (Hall X5 | X5.223).
Adam Bateson’s poster Exploring the role of ocean preconditioning as a driver of Antarctic sea ice loss events (Hall X5 | X5.218)
Benjamin Mellor’s poster A regime change in Arctic sea ice growth (Hall X5 | X5.212
All at 14:00–15:45 (CEST) in Hall X5.
Please visit the EGU26 website for more information and the full programme.
Dr Inès Otosaka is an Assistant Professor at Northumbria University in Newcastle. Her research focuses on using satellite and airborne altimetry data over the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets to detect and interpret changes in their elevation, volume, and mass and estimate their contribution to sea level rise.
She’s also had the chance to visit these incredible places, joining fieldwork expeditions in the Arctic and Antarctic.
At school she has no idea that this career in polar science lay ahead of her. It all started with a French Baccalauréat and a talent for maths and physics.
Yesterday, as part of Mars Day 2026, organised by STEM Learning, ESERO-UK, The European Space Agency and the UK Space Agency, she shared her experience of building a career in polar science with young people across the UK.
After her Baccalauréat (the equivalent of British A-Levels) she went on to Engineering School, where her studies broadened to include mechanics and computer science. The interdisciplinary nature of this study, including both maths and engineering, was excellent transferable experience that would prove useful in her career in climate science.
Everyone’s journey in science looks different. Inès’ included an internship in a factory, which gave her hands-on experience of how technical knowledge gets applied in practice, and her subsequent internship placed her in a research lab working on climate data from Argentinian vineyards. By working with real climate datasets like these, she discovered the kind of work she wanted to do.
Inès continued her academic studies, pursuing a Master’s of Science in The Built Environment, during which she studied remote sensing, spatial statistics, and sustainability. She also took on an internship in sea ice detection using satellite data at the KNMI (Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute) which was her first real encounter with the cryosphere (the frozen parts of our planet).
From there, a PhD in Earth Observation followed, and then a CPOM Research Fellowship in land ice earth observation.
Today, Inès leads the IMBIE team, a collaboration of international scientists who have reconciled three decades of satellite measurements to provide the world’s most authoritative estimates of ice sheet mass balance and sea level rise contributions. She also leads on the ESA-funded CryoTipping project which combines satellite observations with ice sheet modelling to detect marine ice sheet instability in Antarctica.
This work helps answer some of the most pressing questions in climate science: how much are the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets contributing to rising sea levels and when might we reach tipping points in the Antarctic? These are questions which affect all of us, now and in the future. Inès career path included engineering school, a factory floor, and a gradual move towards remote sensing and climate science. This led to her becoming a leading scientist in Earth Observation, teaching other young people with an interest in climate science through her work as an Assistant Professor. It’s a job she’s passionate about – “now I know why studying maths was so important – it’s led me to a job I love!” – she said as part of the presentation.
If you’re good at maths or physics and wondering where it might take you, the answer could be somewhere you haven’t considered yet. Ice sheets, satellites, sea level rise – it’s a long way from the classroom, but the journey can start with the subjects you enjoy at school.
Earth is losing more than a trillion tonnes of ice each year – enough to create an ice cube more than 10km high.
How do we know this?
Satellites like ESA’s CryoSat-2 mission collect crucial climate data from hundreds of miles above Earth.
Once of the challenges we face is how do we make data from space feel real for people on the ground.
Climate change and the research behind it can often feel distant and abstract, but the impacts are immediate and global.
That’s why researchers, space agencies and climate change organisations are getting creative, transforming complex information into experiences that resonate with people outside the scientific community and inspire action from Governments and government agencies.
This International Day of Climate Action, we’re sharing some of the ways that creativity has been used to share environmental science stories in 2025.
Visual storytelling from space
ESA, with Planetary Visions, have partnered to create videos that visualise the research carried out by the UK Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling and other research groups.
Here are some examples:
This animation, featuring research led by CPOM PhD Researcher Nitin Ravinder, shows the thinning of the Greenland ice sheet between 2010 and 2023.
Video Credit: ESA / Planetary Visions / CPOM
And this animation shows something surprising discovered by CPOM Researchers from Lancaster University this year – a subglacial flood bursting through the ice sheet.
Video Credit: ESA/CPOM/Planetary Visions
Stepping inside a year’s worth of ice loss: The Giant Ice Cube
How much ice is a trillion tonnes? CPOM created a 3D, explorable model to help answer this question.
Dr Tom Slater’s research has been transformed into an interactive experience that has travelled across the country, letting school children ‘step into’ a year’s worth of ice loss.
Of those surveyed at our outreach events 85% said they learned something new and 56% said they would consider becoming polar scientists.
Watch this video about why science outreach work is inspiring the next generation of environmental scientists.
Video: CPOM
Using poetry and art to bring science to life
ESA collaborated with artist Jamie Perera to create a multi-sensory installation that transforms satellite data into art. Using poetry penned by ESA’s Peter Bickerton and sonification (turning data into sound) the installation at this year’s Living Planet Symposium shares the science behind the EarthCARE Earth Explorer satellite mission, which gathers data on clouds and aerosols.
Video: ESA
Hear more from Peter Bickerton on how ESA uses creativity to share their science and why this is important
In this short interview, Peter Bickerton, talks about how he uses creativity to tap into people’s imaginations while sharing crucial climate and environmental data derived from earth explorer satellites.
Video credit: CPOM
Bonus: We also have a video of Peter’s 15-year anniversary poem about one of our favourite satellites CryoSat-2!
Video credit: CPOM
Behind the scenes on scientific fieldwork
Some of the most compelling climate science happens in the world’s most remote places where most people will never visit.
That’s why CPOM and programmes like BIOPOLE, led by the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) bring the Arctic and Antarctic to audiences through video content.
In this video filmed aboard RSS Sir David Attenborough, viewers get to see the science in action.
National Capability science like this spans decades of monitoring and measuring, but these glimpses behind the scenes remind us that climate data comes from real people doing remarkable work in extreme conditions.
Video: CPOM
A castle becomes a canvas
This November, CPOM PhD researcher Diego Moral Pombo in partnership with photographer and media specialist James Hooton, will transform Lancaster Castle into a stunning polar science showcase.
Their light installation projected onto Lancaster Castle’s historic John O’Gaunt Gate will bring ice sheets and glaciers to life, visualizing the hidden dynamics happening deep beneath the ice.
By placing climate science in a public place, the installation will invite visitors to the Light Up Lancaster festival to consider how the Earth’s ice sheets are changing, and why.
From research to action
The satellite data shows that Earth’s ice is melting, but data alone rarely inspires action. By transforming complex satellite observations into giant ice cubes, poetry, art installations, and visual stories help people understand that climate change is happening now, is measurable from space, and is affecting communities worldwide.
This International Day of Climate Action, we’re reminded that inspiring climate action requires both science and imaginative communication.
When the science community makes space-based climate data tangible, accessible and engaging, we empower everyone, from schoolchildren to policymakers to understand the challenge, and be part of the solution.
On Saturday 4 October 2025, the UK Centre for Polar Observation (CPOM) joined teams from other companies, universities and science centres at the International Centre for Life, in Newcastle upon Tyne, for their ‘Spotlight on…’ Day.
This year the focus was ‘Space’, one of our favourite topics.
Introducing polar science to young people
During the day we got the chance to meet more than 100 children and their families, all fascinated with space science and wanting to learn more. We had an array of activities ready for them, including polar science inspired puzzles and colouring activities to introduce them to the sort of animals that live in the Arctic and Antarctica. You can find these, and links to other educational resources, on this webpage.
We also introduced them to ESA’s CryoSat-2 and ESA’s ‘Paxi’ mascot, explaining how we use satellites like CryoSat-2 and NASA’s ICESat-2 to monitor the polar regions from space to see what’s happening there. We took along our ice cube tent, an incarnation of the giant ESA ice cube you can see in this video, to help the children understand how much of the ice is melting each year.
About the cube
The cube is a scale model of how much ice is lost on Earth every year if you put it all in one giant ice cube. In real life this cube of ice would be 10 cubic km in size and 1 trillion tonnes in weight! This version of the cube is only 1 cubic meter, so children can interact with it, climbing inside to meet some of the polar animals. We explained to them that the ‘real’ ice cube would be a billion times bigger than our model. The sides of the cube show exactly where the ice is melting and the volume in gigatonnes.
About the science behind the cube
CPOM is a lead partner on ESA’s Antarctic CCI (Climate Change Initiative) project which develops methods for producing long-term and reliable climate data records of Antarctica from satellite observations. CPOM also provides scientific leadership for the Ice Sheet Mass Balance Inter-comparison Exercise (IMBIE), a community effort to reconcile satellite estimates of sea level contribution due to ice loss from the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets. You can read more about these, and other CPOM projects, on our Projects page.
The importance of sharing our science
As Ben Rutherford-Orrock, Contemporary Science Manager, mentions in our case study video:
“Science is all about asking questions and trying to work out the answers. That could be in solving some of the biggest problems we have in the world. Some of these questions are going to take time. If we are looking at how to answer some of these questions we are going to need the next generation of scientists, technologists, engineers and maths professionals. By making science accessible we can encourage young people to think about science as a potential career for the future.”
CPOM Director for Knowledge Exchange Dr Sammie Buzzard (Northumbria University) continues:
“It’s really important for everyone to know about the science we do here at CPOM because it has implications for the whole planet. We are looking at how our polar regions are changing and where the ice is melting. This can have implications for sea level rise which is going to affect everywhere with a coast and beyond.”
This year we have met around 500 children through outreach events like this.
Of those surveyed at all of these events in 2025:
85% reported learning something new about polar science.
56% said they would consider becoming a polar scientist in the future.
We look forward to continuing to inspire the next generation of polar scientists in 2026 and beyond.
In May 2025, CPOM Director for Knowledge Exchange, Sammie Buzzard (Northumbria University), joined a team from BIOPOLE, led by the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), on the RSS Sir David Attenborough, conducting research in the Southern Antarctic Ocean.
BIOPOLE – is a collaborative long-term science programme examining Biogeochemical processes and ecosystem functions in changing polar ecosystems and their impacts.
It was the latest the ship had been to the Southern Ocean. The team’s mission was to look at the ocean water and the dissolved nutrients present at this time of year. This was an exciting prospect as no UK research team had looked at this so deep into winter before.
The team took water samples and tested it in their on-ship lab. They were surprised how much life was still thriving so far south in the winter, despite the lack of daylight and the cold. There were whales, seals, penguins and vast swarms of krill beneath the ocean’s surface which was picked up by acoustic sensors.
BIOPOLE is investigating how the nutrients found in polar oceans are driving the Earth’s global carbon cycle.
The Earth’s Carbon Cycle
The Earth’s carbon cycle is how nature moves carbon around the Earth’s system. BIOPOLE is investigating how ‘nutrients’, such as carbon, nitrogen and phosphorous, found in polar oceans are helping to drive this global carbon cycle. These nutrients feed tiny marine plants called phytoplankton and, similar to vegetation on land, these plants absorb C02 from the ocean to perform photosynthesis. This reduces carbon in the atmosphere helping to regulate the Earth’s climate.
As the Earth’s ice melts, more of these nutrients are being added to the oceans. Understanding the process of this is important when trying to predict what the future might look like for the Earth’s carbon cycle as the ice continues to melt.
National Capability
BIOPOLE is a long-term, multi-centre National Capability programme, funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC). National Capability allows us to bring together skills, expertise and knowledge over decadal timescales to answer some of environmental science’s most pressing questions and challenges that affect the security and wellbeing of people within the UK and beyond. This includes understanding sea level rise and global weather patterns associated with a changing climate and how we can properly adapt to protect the places people live and work.
These scientific questions require the maintenance and development of long-term datasets so we can monitor trends and inform the models we use to project future scenarios, as well as expertise from a range of different scientific disciplines. National Capability science spans decades, enables step-changes in technology and scientific techniques, and makes a wider portfolio of UK-based science possible.
CPOM’s role is to provide satellite information on how polar ice is melting into the oceans, using satellite missions such as the European Space Agency’s (ESA) CryoSat-2.
Watch our full-length case study film to find out more about the BIOPOLE programme or visit their website for more information.
The European State of the Climate 2024 report, an annual report compiled by the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and implemented by ECMWF on behalf of the European Commission, has been released today, showing Europe to be the fastest-warming continent in what was the hottest year on record for Europe.
This year, the UK Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling (CPOM) contributed to the section on Trends in climate indicators.
The polar ice sheets, in Greenland and Antarctica, store a significant proportion of the Earth’s freshwater. When they melt, they contribute this freshwater to the oceans, not only increasing sea levels, but also affecting ocean circulation. Estimates of the Antarctic and Greenland Ice Sheets mass balance produced by IMBIE, an international collaboration of polar scientists led by CPOM and supported by the space agencies ESA and NASA, are used in this report’s key climate indicator on Ice Sheets.
Since the 1970s, there has been a recorded ice loss of:
Greenland ice sheet: 6776 km3
Antarctic ice sheet: 5253 km3
Please see Figure 19.3 on page 89 of the report.
This report also includes an overview of the different components of The cryosphere, including glaciers, sea ice, and ice sheets and how they interact with each other and the Earth’s wider environment, impacting the climate. CPOM is part of C3S (the Copernicus Climate Services) Cryosphere Service, which is led by ENVEO IT GmbH (https://www.enveo.at).
In 2024, we were very lucky to be able to catch up with women working in the field of Earth observation and modelling from across the world at the ESA/NASA Cryo2ice conference in Iceland.
Ahead of International Women’s Day 2025 coming up this Saturday, we gathered some of the perspectives shared with us on the importance of studying and understanding the Earth, what it’s like working in this area of science and why it’s important to share scientific understanding with the world- as well as encouraging words for women and girls thinking of pursuing a career in science.as well as encouraging words for women and girls thinking of pursuing a career in science.
Thank you to our interviewees for taking part in this video: CPOM Principal Investigator: Sea Ice Earth Observation, Rosemary Willatt (UCL), Anny Cazenave (LEGOS), CPOM Director for Knowledge Exchange, Sammie Buzzard (Northumbria University), Liza Wilson (University of Iceland/Fulbright Commission Iceland), Rachel Tilling (NASA), Bryony Freer (Scripps Institute of Oceanography) and Helen Fricker (Scripps Institute of Oceanography).
A special thanks must also go to the ESA and NASA Cryo2ice team, who facilitated many of the interviews included in this video.
It is said that Ernest Shackleton advertised ‘men wanted’ for ‘hazardous journey, small wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger’ ahead of his 1914 Antarctic expedition which ended in the loss of his ship. Back then polar exploration and research was seen as an exclusively male occupation, even though women had been involved since as early as the 19th century. Women were often formally blocked from joining expeditions to the Arctic and Antarctic.
Times have certainly changed since then. During the last century intrepid and tenacious women led the way in shattering this ice ceiling. Fast forward more than a century after Shackleton’s infamous advert to 2025 and women scientists are participating in and leading field research projects across the cryosphere.
The UK Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling, brings together Earth Observation experts with modellers, to provide robust and accurate measurements of the Earth’s ice from the past and present, as well as projections for the future to help with world prepare for the changes a warming world might bring. Although we use satellite data in our work, Earth Observation often requires field-based observations to help verify satellite data, and so fieldwork is still an important piece of the puzzle when researching the polar regions, providing our scientists with wonderful opportunities to visit these incredible and rapidly changing environments.
DEFIANT (Drivers and Effects of Fluctuations in sea Ice in the ANTarctic) is a NERC project aimed at studying sea ice in the Southern Ocean and how it affects the wider climate system. CPOM’s Dr Inès Otosaka and Dr Isobel Lawrence and CPOM Director Professor Andrew Shepherd joined a fantastic team of scientists from BAS and DTU, to visit Antarctica to verify data collected on Antarctic sea ice by satellites.
Image credit: Professor Andrew Shepherd
Inès said (in this blog she wrote at the time) that ‘it was incredibly rewarding to see all the work that had been done over the months preceding the actual fieldwork come to fruition’. Although field work can be an exhausting experience, there was still time to enjoy the spectacular location with the team being ‘lucky enough to spot some penguins, seals, and even a pod of orcas.’
The team recorded this brilliant Iceworld podcast with BAS (British Antarctic Survey) – have a listen to their experiences on this incredible expedition.
Inès also joined Andrew Shepherd, PhD Researchers Amy Swiggs and Dr Anne Braakmann-Folgmann (former PhD Researcher) on the European Space Agency’s (ESA’s) Cryo2ice campaign to Greenland in 2022 where they collected ice cores, verified LiDAR measurements and collected snow depth measurements for snow density calculations. Amy wrote this blog about the fieldwork adventure, if you want to read more about this.
More recently in September 2024, Amy and Inès were also part of a CPOM team that visited Iceland to study proglacial lakes with a drone, alongside PhD Researcher Natasha Lee, CPOM Director for Knowledge Exchange Dr Sammie Buzzard, Andrew Shepherd, PhD Researcher, Nitin Ravinder and Data Scientist, Ben Palmer. We made this short film about this campaign, showing the team in action.
Image: CPOM PhD Researcher Natasha Lee, setting up a drone, on the Iceland Fieldwork campaign 2024.
Getting the opportunity to do fieldwork at an early career stage often draws people to polar science. For Dr Rosie Willatt (CPOM PI) the opportunity to visit Antarctica as a PhD student was a turning point in her career, and ultimately led to her becoming a polar scientist. You can hear more about how Rosie became a polar scientist in this video.
Sammie Buzzard, a glaciologist who started out studying maths, has been part of numerous fieldwork expeditions, including measuring glaciers in the Arctic during her PhD. She will soon be visiting the Antarctic in 2025.
She said “Although we are still far from gender equality within the polar sciences it’s fantastic to see opportunities becoming available to those of all genders that wouldn’t have been even during the earlier years of my lifetime”.
Image: CPOM’s Sammie Buzzard, preparing equipment on the Iceland Fieldwork Campaign, 2024.
These are just some of the examples of CPOM women scientists leading, and working on, these important fieldwork projects across the Arctic and Antarctica.
As we strive to understand these complex regions, how climate changes affect them and in turn how these changes will impact the rest of the planet in the years to come, it’s fantastic to see women scientists playing a vital role following the years of exclusion they experienced in previous centuries.
