Keith Makinson
@keithmakinson.bsky.social
Polar Oceanographer and Subglacial Access Drilling Engineer at British Antarctic Survey @bas.ac.uk Ice Shelves | Ocean | Tides | Ice Streams | Subglacial Lakes | Hot Water Drilling | Ice Drilling | Running |
Here’s some fantastic thermal drone imagery of a thermal spring in East Greenland. Captured by Eva Nielsen earlier this month. The spring water is 53C, flowing down a rock wall behind the field team. Our HotBlink project is funded by the Independent Research Fund of Denmark.
That's a wrap on the 2025/26 Antarctic science season! Our teams worked on 50+ projects across five research stations, in the deep field, and at sea – from climate science to wildlife monitoring. Here's a look back at (some of) what we got up to... 🧵1/9
Recently I was delighted to be invited to give a talk in the @cprecountryside.bsky.social Spring Webinar Series on 'The Changing West Antarctic Ice Sheet - Global and Local Implications'. A recording is now available online youtu.be/UkG24vHj0ps?... #CPRE #Antarctica #sealevel
Climate Emergency webinar - Dr Rob Larter
YouTube video by Campaign to Protect Rural England
youtu.be
Thwaites Eastern Ice Shelf heading for collapse. Monthly average velocities Jan 2025 to Feb 2026 derived from EU Copernicus Programme Sentinel-1 SAR data. Grounding lines in black and yellow from NASA MEaSUREs
In January-February, a scientific expedition traveled to Antarctica to study its fastest melting glacier, the Thwaites. You can find out more here (includes photos and videos): www.nytimes.com/live/2025/cl... (gift). 🌎
You can follow @zhonggg.bsky.social and Chang Lee's coverage of the trip to the Thwaites Glacier here. This has got to be the most well-covered research cruise ever. 🌊
Journey to the Melting Continent
nytimes.com
To go under Thwaites Glacier, the only way is through ⬇️ This intrepid UK-Korean science team are tunnelling 1000m through one of the world's most unstable ice shelves. They'll get daily data showing how warm ocean water is melting Thwaites from below - crucial for predicting sea level rise.
We've never seen anyone so enthusiastic to crush ice – but a team of scientists are studying the cracking of ice, and they’re pretty hyped! ❄️ @newscientist.com spoke to members of the RIFT-TIP project, who are investigating how ice shelf fractures grow. Watch the video here: tinyurl.com/526tn8zz
We've had a Very Important Ice delivery! These precious ancient ice core samples from Antarctica are expected to reveal a climate record stretching back more than 1.5 million years 🤯 That's further than we've ever looked back before. 🧵 1/4
"It is impossible to overstate how critical this region is to our shared future." - @tobyperkinsmp.bsky.social, Chair Read our report on the UK and the Antarctic environment: publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm5901/cm...
This is almost unbelievable. It's now May and there is still virtually no new sea ice forming in the Bellingshausen Sea (lower left region in image). Image showing sea ice concentration derived from AMSR satellite data is by Institute of Environmental Physics, University of Bremen, Germany.
The Penguin Book of penguins - An Expert's Guide to the World's Most Beloved Bird by Peter Fretwell and Lisa Fretwell www.penguin.co.uk/books/464310... @ptfretwell.bsky.social @bas.ac.uk #PenguinBooks #VikingBooksUK
The Penguin Book of Penguins
A charming and beautifully illustrated book about the world’s most beloved bird, written by a leading Scientist at The British Antarctic Survey, illustrated by his wife. There’s something about pengu...
penguin.co.uk
Update on Thwaites Glacier Eastern Ice Shelf from Copernicus Sentinel-1 SAR. Downloadable version here: aluckman4.wixsite.com/ade-s-world-...
Year-end scramble getting you down? ⏳ Applications for lots of our Antarctic #jobs are closing in the next week. They include vehicles manager at Halley, and Radio Operator and IT Engineer at Rothera Research Station. These are jobs unlike any other, in one of the most beautiful places on Earth ⬇️
Iceberg A23a pictured from the ISS. The space station is almost as far south as it can reach here (51.5° S, 49.0° W - altitude of 422km). Picture taken on 14 March, so the berg had been grounded at South Georgia for a fortnight by this time.
Scientists made a stunning discovery beneath an Antarctic ice shelf—thriving life in a world once thought uninhabitable.The breakthrough offers new insights into deep-sea ecosystems and the resilience of life in extreme environments. indianexpress.com/ar...
Why scientists were surprised to find life under Antarctic ice shelf
The mission was part of Challenger 150, a UNESCO-endorsed global initiative for deep-sea research. The discoveries were announced on Thursday. The findings provide new insights into how ecosystems function beneath floating sections of the Antarctic ice.
indianexpress.com
1.2 million years - have you heard of ice this old?! 🧊 These ice cores were retrieved as part of the Beyond EPICA - Oldest Ice project, which aims to unlock crucial insights into Earth's past climate and atmospheric conditions #ice #climate Read the full story 👇 www.bas.ac.uk/media-post/a...
As polar night ends and sunlight begins to return to Longyearbyen, lets see how the Svalbard seasons progressed last year - from ice-locked fjords in March, through to the first snows of October. Thanks to NASA MODIS via GIBS. Download at full resolution here: aluckman4.wixsite.com/ade-s-world-...
The last Twin Otter aircraft has just left Rothera which marks the end of the field season, and gives us a chance to look back at the support we have provided over the year. We started with fieldwork and air unit maps! 🧵 1/5
The world's largest iceberg, A23a, appears to have grounded close to South Georgia. We've been monitoring and mapping this berg for many years now and we're watching closely to see what it might do next! These maps show its route since 1986 and the latest position to the SW of South Georgia ❄️🐧 1/3
Hot off the press - the latest edition of the BAS Long Read! 🔥📰 Get ready to hear from three Antarctic scientists - Dr Emma Pearce, Dr Liz Thomas, and Dr Dieter Tetzner - about their work drilling for ice cores in Antarctica Grab a coffee, and settle down for a read 👇 www.bas.ac.uk/blogpost/the...
Here's the @aria-research.bsky.social page about the Forecasting Tipping Points programme. It's well worth a proper read! 🌍 www.aria.org.uk/opportunity-... Here’s the BAS news story about GRAIL - and three other projects involving BAS researchers: ❄️ tinyurl.com/kzhhha6w 3/3
Scientists secure funding to study Greenland and North Atlantic climate tipping points - British Antarctic Survey
British Antarctic Survey (BAS) researchers have been selected for funding from The Advanced Research + Invention Agency (ARIA) to help improve our understanding of climate tipping points. These tippin...
tinyurl.com
A new paper about the Antarctic Ice Sheet in a special issue of @science.org reviews critical knowledge gaps in our understanding of how Antarctica responds to variations in global climate. Antarctica in 2025: Drivers of deep uncertainty in projected ice loss www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Find out why this is the perfect place for an automatic monitoring station to measure ocean temperature, salinity and currents. It's crucial research about potential sea-level rise: are warming waters melting the ice shelf that holds back the glaciers? ▶️ aapp.shorthandstories.com/fishing-for-...
Fishing for a glacier's secrets
A story of audacious science on an Antarctic ice shelf
aapp.shorthandstories.com
A new iceberg, ~30x14 km in size, recently calved from the southern end of the George VI Ice Shelf. It's called A84 and is already making quite an impact, bumping into the Stange Ice Shelf over the weekend! These Copernicus Sentinel-1 images from Polar View show the new berg over the last few days.
Beautiful Sentinel-2 imagery of George VI Ice Shelf with lots of meltwater from yesterday. The patterns that this water produces is like artwork! Fossil Bluff is shown in the second image, and Hodgson Lake shown in the last - a former subglacial lake sealed under ice thick perennial ice ❄️
🔥New paper alert! 🔥🧪❄️🥼 Ever wondered what to consider when drilling through an ice sheet into rock? We take you through how we chose a drill site in West #Antarctica using field observations, samples, radar survey, modelling & satellite imagery. tc.copernicus.org/articles/19/... @bas.ac.uk 🧵1/n
Assessing the suitability of sites near Pine Island Glacier for subglacial bedrock drilling aimed at detecting Holocene retreat–readvance
Abstract. Unambiguous identification of past episodes of ice sheet thinning below the modern surface and grounding line retreat inboard of present requires recovery and exposure dating of subglacial b...
tc.copernicus.org
Important paper in Nature today about collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. There is a positive isotope anomaly at Skytrain Ice Rise during the last interglacial, consistent with what we found in our high-resolution water-isotope simulations when WAIS collapses. www.nature.com/articles/s41...
The Ronne Ice Shelf survived the last interglacial - Nature
Sea salt data from an ice core record show that Antarctica’s Ronne Ice Shelf survived the last interglacial, the last period of enhanced and sustained global warmth about 125,000 years ago.
nature.com
