Scott Polar Research InstituteRecent news
# A new graphic novel brings story of Scott’s expedition to the South Pole to life
28th October, 2022
To celebrate the centennial year of the publication of The Worst Journey in the World by Apsley Cherry-Garrard, an account of Scott's infamous expedition to the South Pole, SPRI Institute Associate and former Disney animator Sarah Airriess has transformed Cherry's tome into a soon-to-be published graphic novel. Retelling the story through cinematic visuals, the novel keeps as true as possible to the original account while bringing out the emotional core of Cherry's tale, and open up a classic book to new audiences.
Apsley Cherry-Garrard was one of the youngest members of the expedition. As things started to go wrong, he found himself drawn to the centre of events and burdened with responsibility far beyond his abilities. A painful loss of innocence is the axis on which the story turns, but The Worst Journey in the World is ultimately about the power of friendship, the value of curiosity, and the extremes to which people go for the sake of an idea.
Airriess will be releasing the story as a set of volumes, the first part following the expedition crew of the Terra Nova as they sail from Cardiff to Antarctica. The Worst Journey in the World: The Graphic Novel, will be published by independent publisher, Indie Novella, and will be available to buy online and via selected distributors from 24th November 2022.
Airriess undertook research over the course of a decade to bring her graphic novel to life, in collaboration with the Scott Polar Research Institute, Cambridge, using their archives to inform the narrative, and the collection of the Polar Museum to inform the drawings. In 2019, she travelled to Antarctica in order to follow the footsteps of Scott and faithfully portray the setting of the story from first-hand experience.
Airriess' work behind the making of the graphic novel is currently on exhibition at The Polar Museum in Cambridge and can be viewed by the public until the end of October 2022.
# Professor Julian Dowdeswell reappointed as a Royal Museums Greenwich Trustee
27th October, 2022
Professor Julian Dowdeswell has been reappointed as a Royal Museums Greenwich Trustee Trustee, for a four-year term commencing 3 September 2022 until 2 September 2026.
Julian has been Professor of Physical Geography in Cambridge University since 2002. He has just retired from almost 20 years as Director of the Scott Polar Research Institute. He is a glaciologist, studying the form and flow of glaciers and ice caps and their response to climate change, and the links between former ice sheets and the marine geological record. Julian has worked, on the ice and from aircraft, in Antarctica and many parts of the Arctic. He has also undertaken many periods of work on icebreaking research vessels in the Southern Ocean and the Arctic.
# Seasonal change in Antarctic Ice Sheet movement observed for first time
6th October, 2022
SPRI researchers, led by Karla Boxall, have identified distinct, seasonal movements in the flow of land ice draining into George VI Ice Shelf on the Antarctic Peninsula. This is the first time that such seasonal cycles have been detected on land ice flowing into ice shelves in Antarctica.
Using imagery from the Copernicus/European Space Agency Sentinel-1 satellites, the researchers found that the glaciers feeding the ice shelf speed up by approximately 15% during the Antarctic summer. The results are reported in the journal The Cryosphere.
The research has been published as an article in the journal The Cryosphere and was supported in part by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), the Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation and the European Space Agency through the Antarctic Ice Sheet Climate Change Initiative Programme.
# Ice age valleys give clues to future ice sheet change
6th October, 2022
Deep valleys buried under the seafloor of the North Sea record how the ancient ice sheets that used to cover the UK and Europe expelled water to stop themselves from collapsing.
A new study by James Kirkham (Lead Author) and others published this week discovered that the valleys took just hundreds of years to form as they transported vast amounts of meltwater away from under the ice and out into the sea.
This new understanding of when the vast ice sheets melted 20,000 years ago has implications for how glaciers may respond to climate warming today.
# New evidence for possible liquid water beneath the south polar ice cap of Mars
29th September, 2022
An international team of researchers, led by Neil Arnold at SPRI, has revealed new evidence for the possible existence of liquid water beneath the south polar ice cap of Mars.
The team, including researchers from the University of Sheffield, the University of Nantes, University College, Dublin, and the Open University used spacecraft laser-altimeter measurements of the shape of the upper surface of the ice cap to identify subtle patterns in its height.
Their results agree with earlier ice-penetrating radar measurements that were originally interpreted to show a potential area of liquid water beneath the ice. There has been debate over the liquid water interpretation from the radar data alone, with some studies suggesting the radar signal is not due to liquid water.
The results, reported in the journal Nature Astronomy, provide the first independent line of evidence, using data other than radar, that there is liquid water beneath Mars' south polar ice cap.
# Olga Tutubalina and Gareth Rees interviewed for BBC Radio 4
29th September, 2022
SPRI researchers Dr Gareth Rees and Dr Olga Tutubalina were interviewed on BBC Radio 4's Inside Science for a special programme about science collaborations with Russia. Listen online from 05:42.
# Gareth Rees's work in Arctic featured in Financial Times
11th September, 2022
The work of Gareth Rees and others studying the Boreal forest biome has been featured in an article in the Financial Times.
The article explores how climate change is affecting the forest around the Arctic circle, with a particular focus on Russia. There is some commentary on the role of diplomacy and conflict in enabling or preventing vital research, which impact on understandings of environmental change that affect the entire globe.
# Premdeep Gill elected to RGS Council
12th July, 2022
PhD student, Prem Gill, has been elected by members of the Royal Geographical Society to the Council of the RGS as the Expedition and Fieldwork Councillor for the next three years.
The Council is responsible for the Society's governance and Prem joins a group of 21 elected members. As the Expedition and Fieldwork Councillor, Prem will lead the Expeditions and Fieldwork Committee, using his specific expertise to help guide members and Society staff.
Prem Gill is currently a PhD candidate under the supervision of Dr Gareth Rees, leading the "Seals from Space: the study of Antarctic pack-ice seals by remote sensing" priority project with the Scott Polar Research Institute (SPRI), British Antarctic Survey (BAS) and World Wildlife Fund (WWF).
# Sea ice can control Antarctic ice sheet stability, new SPRI research finds
17th May, 2022
SPRI researchers have used over 40 years of satellite observations and ocean and atmosphere records to show that abrupt changes in offshore sea ice cover can either safeguard from, or set in motion, the final rifting and calving of icebergs from even large Antarctic ice shelves.
The research, led by Dr. Frazer Christie, has been published as an article in the journal Nature Geoscience.
This research was supported in part by the Flotilla Foundation, Marine Archaeology Consultants Switzerland, and the Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation.
# Professor Philip Gibbard awarded the Merit Medal by the German Quaternary Association (Deuqua)
25th April, 2022
Emeritus Professor Philip Gibbard has been awarded the Verdienstmedaille (Merit Medal) by the German Quaternary Association (Deuqua). The medal is awarded biennially as a special honour for outstanding scientific achievements in Quaternary research.