̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - Julian Dowdeswell

Ice sheets can collapse faster than previously thought possible

sc604 — Wed, 05 Apr 2023 14:59:35 +0000

An international team of researchers used high-resolution imagery of the seafloor to reveal just how quickly a former ice sheet that extended from Norway retreated at the end of the last Ice Age, about 20,000 years ago.

̽��ֱ��team, including researchers from the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, mapped more than 7,600 small-scale landforms called corrugation ridges across the seafloor. ̽��ֱ��ridges are less than 2.5 metres high and are spaced between about 25 and 300 metres apart.

These landforms are understood to have formed when the ice sheet’s retreating margin moved up and down with the tides, pushing seafloor sediments into a ridge every low tide. Given that two ridges would have been produced each day, the researchers were able to calculate how quickly the ice sheet retreated.

Their results, reported in the journal Nature, show the former ice sheet underwent pulses of rapid retreat at a speed of 50 to 600 metres per day. This is much faster than any ice sheet retreat rate that has been observed from satellites or inferred from similar landforms in Antarctica.

“Our research provides a warning from the past about the speeds that ice sheets are physically capable of retreating at,” said Dr Christine Batchelor from Newcastle ̽��ֱ��, who led the research. “Our results show that pulses of rapid retreat can be far quicker than anything we’ve seen so far.”

Information about how ice sheets behaved during past periods of climate warming is important to inform computer simulations that predict future ice sheet and sea-level change.

“This study shows the value of acquiring high-resolution imagery about the glaciated landscapes that are preserved on the seafloor,” said co-author Dr Dag Ottesen from the Geological Survey of Norway, who is involved in the MAREANO seafloor mapping programme that collected the data.

̽��ֱ��new research suggests that periods of such rapid ice-sheet retreat may only last for short periods of time: from days to months.

“This shows how rates of ice-sheet retreat averaged over several years or longer can conceal shorter episodes of more rapid retreat,” said co-author Professor Julian Dowdeswell from Cambridge’s Scott Polar Research Institute. “It is important that computer simulations are able to reproduce this ‘pulsed’ ice-sheet behaviour.”

̽��ֱ��seafloor landforms also shed light into the mechanism by which such rapid retreat can occur. ̽��ֱ��researchers found that the former ice sheet had retreated fastest across the flattest parts of its bed.

“An ice margin can unground from the seafloor and retreat near-instantly when it becomes buoyant,” said co-author Dr Frazer Christie, also from the Scott Polar Research Institute. “This style of retreat only occurs across relatively flat beds, where less melting is required to thin the overlying ice to the point where it starts to float.”

̽��ֱ��researchers conclude that pulses of similarly rapid retreat could soon be observed in parts of Antarctica. This includes at West Antarctica’s vast Thwaites Glacier, which is the subject of considerable international research due to its potential susceptibility to unstable retreat. ̽��ֱ��authors of this new study suggest that Thwaites Glacier could undergo a pulse of rapid retreat because it has recently retreated close to a flat area of its bed.

“Our findings suggest that present-day rates of melting are sufficient to cause short pulses of rapid retreat across flat-bedded areas of the Antarctic Ice Sheet, including at Thwaites”, said Batchelor. “Satellites may well detect this style of ice-sheet retreat in the near future, especially if we continue our current trend of climate warming.”

Other co-authors are Dr Aleksandr Montelli and Evelyn Dowdeswell at the Scott Polar Research Institute, Dr Jeffrey Evans at Loughborough ̽��ֱ��, and Dr Lilja Bjarnadóttir at the Geological Survey of Norway. ̽��ֱ��study was supported by Peterhouse, Cambridge, the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at Newcastle ̽��ֱ��, the Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation, and the Geological Survey of Norway.

Reference:
Christine L Batchelor et al. ‘Rapid, buoyancy-driven ice-sheet retreat of hundreds of metres per day’. Nature (2023), DOI: 10.1038/s41586-023-05876-1

Adapted from a press release by Newcastle ̽��ֱ��.

Ice sheets can retreat up to 600 metres a day during periods of climate warming, 20 times faster than the highest rate of retreat previously measured.

Copernicus EU/ESA, processed by Dr Frazer Christie

Sentinel-1 image composite depicting the highly fractured and fast-flowing frontal margin of the Thwaites and Crosson ice shelves

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright © ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified. All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – as here, on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

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Sea ice can control Antarctic ice sheet stability, new research finds

sc604 — Fri, 13 May 2022 09:00:50 +0000

Despite the rapid melting of ice in many parts of Antarctica during the second half of the 20th century, researchers have found that the floating ice shelves which skirt the eastern Antarctic Peninsula have undergone sustained advance over the past 20 years.

Antarctic ice sheets capable of retreating up to 50 metres per day

sc604 — Thu, 28 May 2020 18:00:00 +0000

̽��ֱ��study, led by the Scott Polar Research Institute at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, used patterns of delicate wave-like ridges on the Antarctic seafloor to calculate how quickly the ice retreated roughly 12,000 years ago during regional deglaciation.

̽��ֱ��ridges were produced where the ice sheet began to float, and were caused by the ice squeezing the sediment on the seafloor as it moved up and down with the movement of the tides. ̽��ֱ��images of these landforms are at unprecedented sub-metre resolution and were acquired from an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) operating about 60 metres above the seabed. ̽��ֱ��results are reported in the journal Science.

While modern satellites are able to gather detailed information about the retreat and thinning rates of the ice around Antarctica, the data only goes back a few decades. Calculating the maximum speed at which an ice sheet can retreat, using sets of these seafloor ridges, reveals historic retreat rates that are almost ten times faster than the maximum observed rates of retreat today.

“By examining the past footprint of the ice sheet and looking at sets of ridges on the seafloor, we were able to obtain new evidence on maximum past ice retreat rates, which are very much faster than those observed in even the most sensitive parts of Antarctica today,” said lead author Professor Julian Dowdeswell, Director of the Scott Polar Research Institute.

̽��ֱ��study was carried out as part of the Weddell Sea Expedition, which set out in early 2019 to undertake a science programme and to find Sir Ernest Shackleton’s doomed ship Endurance. Although sea ice conditions at the time prevented the team from acquiring imagery of the legendary wreck, they were able to continue with their scientific work, including mapping of the seafloor close to the Larsen Ice Shelf, east of the Antarctic Peninsula.

Using drones, satellites and AUVs, the researchers were able to study ice conditions in the Weddell Sea in unprecedented detail.

Their goals were to investigate the present and past form and flow of the ice shelves, the massive floating sections of ice that skirt about 75% of the Antarctic coastline, where they act as a buttress against ice flow from inland.

Like much of the rest of the ice in the polar regions, these buttresses are weakening in some parts of Antarctica, as witnessed most dramatically at the Larsen A and B ice shelves, which collapsed rapidly in 1998 and 2002, when roughly 1250 square miles of ice fragmented and collapsed in little over a month.

̽��ֱ��ice shelves are thinning because relatively warm water currents are eating away at them from below, but they’re also melting from the top as summer air temperatures rise. Both these effects thin and weaken the ice shelves and, as they do, the glaciers they are holding back flow faster to the sea and their margins retreat.

Using AUVs, the team were able to gather data on historic ice shelf fluctuations from the geological record on the Antarctic continental shelf.

“By examining landforms on the seafloor, we were able to make determinations about how the ice behaved in the past,” said Dowdeswell, who was chief scientist on the Weddell Sea Expedition. “We knew these features were there, but we’ve never been able to examine them in such great detail before.”

̽��ֱ��team identified a series of delicate wave-like ridges on the seafloor, each only about one metre high and spaced 20 to 25 metres apart, dating to the end of the last great deglaciation of the Antarctic continental shelf, roughly 12,000 years ago. ̽��ֱ��researchers have interpreted these ridges as formed at what was formerly the grounding line – the zone where grounded ice sheet begins to float as an ice shelf.

̽��ֱ��researchers inferred that these small ridges were caused by the ice moving up and down with the tides, squeezing the sediment into well-preserved geological patterns, looking a little like the rungs of a ladder, as the ice retreated. Assuming a standard 12-hour cycle between high and low tide, and measuring the distance between the ridges, the researchers were then able to determine how fast the ice was retreating at the end of the last Ice Age.

They calculated that the ice was retreating as much as 40 to 50 metres per day during this period, a rate that equates to more than 10 kilometres per year. In comparison, modern satellite images show that even the fastest-retreating grounding lines in Antarctica today, for example in Pine Island Bay, are much slower than these geological observations, at only about 1.6 kilometres per year.

“ ̽��ֱ��deep marine environment is actually quite quiet offshore of Antarctica, allowing features such as these to be well-preserved through time on the seafloor,” said Dowdeswell. “We now know that the ice is capable of retreating at speeds far higher than what we see today. Should climate change continue to weaken the ice shelves in the coming decades, we could see similar rates of retreat, with profound implications for global sea-level rise.”

̽��ֱ��research was funded in part by the Flotilla Foundation and Marine Archaeology Consultants Switzerland.

Reference:
J. A. Dowdeswell et al. ‘Delicate seafloor landforms reveal past Antarctic grounding-line retreat of kilometers per year.’ Science (2020). DOI: 10.1126/science.aaz3059

̽��ֱ��ice shelves surrounding the Antarctic coastline retreated at speeds of up to 50 metres per day at the end of the last Ice Age, far more rapid than the satellite-derived retreat rates observed today, new research has found.

Should climate change continue to weaken the ice shelves in the coming decades, we could see similar rates of retreat, with profound implications for global sea-level rise

Julian Dowdeswell

View from Agulhas II

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright © ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified. All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – as here, on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

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Vintage film reveals Antarctic glacier melting

sc604 — Tue, 03 Sep 2019 09:20:55 +0000

Newly digitized vintage film has doubled how far back scientists can peer into the history of underground ice in Antarctica, and revealed that an ice shelf on Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica is being thawed by a warming ocean more quickly than previously thought. This finding contributes to predictions for sea-level rise that would impact coastal communities around the world.

̽��ֱ��researchers made their findings by comparing ice-penetrating radar records of Thwaites Glacier with modern data. Their results are reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“By having this record, we can now see these areas where the ice shelf is getting thinnest and could break through,” said lead author Dustin Schroeder from Stanford ̽��ֱ��, who led efforts to digitize the historical data from airborne surveys conducted in the 1970s. “This is a pretty hard-to-get-to area and we’re really lucky that they happened to fly across this ice shelf.”

Researchers digitized about 250,000 flight miles of Antarctic radar data originally captured on 35mm optical film between 1971 and 1979 as part of a collaboration between Stanford and the Scott Polar Research Institute (SPRI) at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge. ̽��ֱ��data has been released to an online public archive through Stanford Libraries, enabling other scientists to compare it with modern radar data in order to understand long-term changes in ice thickness, features within glaciers and baseline conditions over 40 years.

Professor Julian Dowdeswell, Director of the Scott Polar Research Institute, a co-author of the paper, commented: “These early records of ice thickness provide an important baseline against which we can measure the rate of change of the Antarctic Ice Sheet over the past 40 or so years. ̽��ֱ��high-resolution digitization of these records crucially makes them available for a series of important investigations on aspects of Antarctic environmental change.”

̽��ֱ��information provided by historic records will help efforts like the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in its goal of projecting climate and sea-level rise for the next 100 years. By being able to look back 40 to 50 years at subsurface conditions rather than just the 10 to 20 years provided by modern data, scientists can better understand what has happened in the past and make more accurate projections about the future, Schroeder said.

“You can really see the geometry over this long period of time, how these ocean currents have melted the ice shelf – not just in general, but exactly where and how,” said Schroeder. “When we model ice sheet behaviour and sea-level projections into the future, we need to understand the processes at the base of the ice sheet that made the changes we’re seeing.”

̽��ֱ��film was originally recorded in an exploratory survey using ice-penetrating radar, a technique still used today to capture information from the surface through the bottom of the ice sheet. ̽��ֱ��radar shows mountains, volcanoes and lakes beneath the surface of Antarctica, as well as layers inside the ice sheet that reveal the history of climate and flow.

̽��ֱ��researchers identified several features beneath the ice sheet that had previously only been observed in modern data, including ash layers from past volcanic eruptions captured inside the ice and channels where water from beneath the ice sheet is eroding the bottom of ice shelves. They also found that one of these channels had a stable geometry for over 40 years, information that contrasts their findings about the Thwaites Glacier ice shelf, which has thinned from 10 to 33 percent between 1978 and 2009.

“ ̽��ֱ��fact that we were able to have one ice shelf where we can say, ‘Look, it’s pretty much stable. And here, there’s significant change’ – that gives us more confidence in the results about Thwaites,” Schroeder said.

̽��ֱ��scientists hope their findings demonstrate the value of comparing this historical information to modern data to analyse different aspects of Antarctica at a finer scale. In addition to the radar data, the Stanford Digital Repository includes photographs of the notebooks from the flight operators, an international consortium of American, British and Danish geoscientists.

“It was surprising how good the old data is,” Schroeder said. “They were very careful and thoughtful engineers and it’s much richer, more modern looking, than you would think.”

Reference:
Dustin M. Schroeder et al. ‘Multidecadal observations of the Antarctic ice sheet from restored analog radar records.’ Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2019). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1821646116

Adapted from a Stanford press release.

A bold response to the world’s greatest challenge
̽��ֱ�� ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge is building on its existing research and launching an ambitious new environment and climate change initiative. Cambridge Zero is not just about developing greener technologies. It will harness the full power of the ̽��ֱ��’s research and policy expertise, developing solutions that work for our lives, our society and our biosphere.

Newly available archival film has revealed the eastern ice shelf of Thwaites Glacier in Antarctica is melting faster than previous estimates, suggesting the shelf may collapse sooner than expected.

̽��ֱ��high-resolution digitization of these records crucially makes them available for a series of important investigations on aspects of Antarctic environmental change

Julian Dowdeswell

NASA

Thwaites Glacier

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̽��ֱ��search for Endurance

sc604 — Thu, 24 Jan 2019 16:27:46 +0000

Update - 14 February 2019: ̽��ֱ��Weddell Sea Expedition reached the wreck site, but deteriorating weather and ice conditions forced searchers to abandon the quest... for now.

Professor Julian Dowdeswell, Director of the Scott Polar Research Institute, is chief scientist on the ambitious expedition, which will use drones, satellites and autonomous underwater vehicles to study ice conditions in the Weddell Sea in unprecedented detail.

̽��ֱ��Weddell Sea is also the site of one of the most famous stories from the ‘Heroic Age’ of polar exploration.

̽��ֱ��Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition 1914-17 set out to cross Antarctica via the South Pole. However, in November 1915, Shackleton and his 28-man crew were confronted with one of the worst disasters in Antarctic history when Endurance was trapped, crushed and sunk by pack ice. ̽��ֱ��outside world was unaware of their predicament or location, food was scarce and the chance of survival was remote.

In this film, Professor Dowdeswell tells the incredible story of Endurance, and how he and the other members of the Weddell Sea expedition hope to locate the wreckage of one of the most iconic vessels in polar exploration.

In early January, a team of Cambridge scientists set out on an expedition to study and map the Larsen C ice shelf in western Antarctica, and – ice conditions permitting – search for the wreckage of Sir Ernest Shackleton’s Endurance.

̽��ֱ��Search for Endurance

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Exhibition reunites artworks from Captain Scott’s final expedition – a century on

sjr81 — Mon, 01 Aug 2016 08:53:35 +0000

Visions of the Great White South opens at Bonhams in Bond Street on August 2 and uses collections from the fateful Terra Nova expedition, held by the Scott Polar Research Institute at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge.

̽��ֱ��British Antarctic Expedition, better known by the name of its ship the Terra Nova, took place from 1910-1913. Captain Robert Falcon Scott appointed Dr Edward Wilson, a close friend and a fine watercolourist, as his chief scientist. He also invited camera artist Herbert Ponting to join the expedition as official photographer; a bold move in an era when high quality photography required great skill and careful attention in ordinary circumstances, let alone in the extreme environment of the Antarctic. Both Wilson and Ponting captured expedition life as well as keeping a visual record of scientific phenomena that the crew were studying.

Making use of the Scott Polar Research Institute’s historical collections, the exhibition will also show examples of Captain Scott’s photography from the expedition in a series of beautiful new platinum prints of his work, produced by Belgian photographic publishers Salto Ulbeek in collaboration with the Scott Polar Research Institute. Scott was taught photography by Ponting during the expedition, and, in the images he produced, the influence of both Ponting and Wilson can be discerned in the ways he captured the vast and compelling landscapes of the Antarctic.

Both Ponting and Wilson hoped to hold a joint exhibition. However, the catastrophic loss of the South Pole party including Scott and Wilson made that impossible.

Owing to the death of Dr. Wilson his pictures could never be reproduced for sale, as he had intended. His widow, therefore, considered it better that they should be exhibited separately. ̽��ֱ��whole beautiful series of his water colours was shown at the Alpine Club, whilst my photographs were exhibited at the Fine Art Society's galleries, London.

Herbert Ponting

Professor Julian Dowdeswell, Director of the Scott Polar Research Institute, said: “It is a great privilege to hold the remarkable paintings of Edward Wilson and the striking photography of Herbert Ponting in the Scott Polar Research Institute’s historic collection. By reuniting their work in this special exhibition we are pleased to give the public the opportunity to see their works together and at their best.”

Alongside the historic artworks, visitors will have the opportunity to see contemporary interpretations of the ‘great white south’. For several years the Friends of Scott Polar Research Institute, with the support of Bonhams and the Royal Navy, have run an artist-in-residence scheme which sends an artist to the Antarctic on board the icebreaker HMS Protector. Artists including Captain Scott’s grand-daughter Dafila Scott and renowned wildlife artist Darren Rees will exhibit their responses to the frozen wilds of Antarctica.

Robert Brooks, Chairman of Bonhams, said: “It is an honour for Bonhams to exhibit the art of two such extraordinarily talented and brave men and to be able to hang works together publicly for the first time ever. ̽��ֱ��Terra Nova expedition is famous, of course, for the tragic loss of Captain Scott and his companions. But its purpose was primarily scientific and Wilson and Ponting's work reminds us of the pioneering quest for knowledge that underpinned the venture."

̽��ֱ��chairman of the Friends of Scott Polar Research Institute, Rear Admiral Nick Lambert, said: “ ̽��ֱ��Friends are extremely grateful for Bonhams’ and the Royal Navy’s ongoing support of the Artist in Residence Programme enabling five artists to experience and record Antarctica’s fabulous environment hosted by HMS Scott and HMS Protector over the past five years. ̽��ֱ��exhibition is a brilliant opportunity to display modern works alongside those of the Terra Nova expedition.”

̽��ֱ��Friends are also pleased to announce that this summer their first Arctic artist-in-residence will be travelling to Svalbard, with the support of One Ocean Expeditions.

A new exhibition has reunited the iconic photography of Herbert Ponting with the watercolours of Edward Wilson – more than a century after the two Antarctic explorers first dreamt up their plan for a joint exhibition.

By reuniting their work in this special exhibition we are pleased to give the public the opportunity to see their works together and at their best.

Julian Dowdeswell

Emperor penguins drawn by Dr Edward Wilson on board the Terra Nova

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. For image use please see separate credits above.

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Cambridge in Davos

jfp40 — Mon, 20 Jan 2014 16:09:10 +0000

Professor Lord Martin Rees (Institute of Astronomy), Professor Julian Dowdeswell (Scott Polar Research Institute) and Professor Jon Hutton (UNEP-WCMC and Hughes Hall) will deliver an IdeasLab presentation at the World Economic Forum in Davos on 24 January. Together, they will explore the technological and policy innovations that will help us adapt to a climate-changed world.

IdeasLabs are quick-fire visual presentations followed by workgroup discussion, and have proved a successful format for engaging various communities in academic thinking.

As a collaborator in research at Imperial College London, Professor Barbara Sahakian of the Cambridge Department of Psychiatry will also give a presentation, on cognitive stimulation and the ethical implications of drugs to enhance brain function.

̽��ֱ��World Economic Forum is an independent international organisation engaging business, political, academic and other leaders of society to shape global, regional and industry agendas; this year’s theme is ̽��ֱ��Reshaping of the World: Consequences for Society, Politics and Business.

̽��ֱ��Forum will provide an opportunity for the Cambridge researchers to engage with decision-makers in business, NGOs and in public policy, and to highlight new ideas from Cambridge in responding to global challenges. Apart from the Annual Meeting, several Cambridge academics contribute to the World Economic Forum year-round, as members of Global Agenda Councils.

̽��ֱ��Vice-Chancellor said “Cambridge academics are working in partnership with many organisations to help global society address some of the thorniest questions. I look forward to a productive engagement with Annual Meeting participants from every sector.”

/research

A delegation of Cambridge academics, led by the Vice-Chancellor, Professor Sir Leszek Borysiewicz, is attending the World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting in Davos, Switzerland, this week.

Cambridge academics are working in partnership with many organisations to help global society address some of the thorniest questions.

Professor Sir Leszek Borysiewicz

World Economic Forum

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Celebrating the centenary of Captain Scott reaching the South Pole

bjb42 — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 14:20:28 +0000

Descendants, politicians, historians and scientists have gathered in Cambridge for a symposium to consider Scott’s scientific, historical and cultural legacy.

̽��ֱ��Institute’s Director, Professor Julian Dowdeswell said, “ ̽��ֱ��centenary gives us the perfect opportunity to reflect on Scott’s achievements and his legacy and to celebrate a century of Antarctic science. ̽��ֱ��Institute’s education and outreach activities are designed to encourage the next generation of young people to take up careers in polar science and to be inspired by Scott’s example.” ̽��ֱ��conference will be followed by a gala dinner to be attended by HRH ̽��ֱ��Duke of Edinburgh and HSH Prince Albert II of Monaco.

In addition, the photographs taken by Captain Scott on his final expedition to the South Pole will be saved for the nation by SPRI, thanks to the support of the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) enabling their purchase.

This remarkable collection consists of 109 photographs, and gives a view of the Antarctic as seen through Captain Scott’s eyes as he documented the first part of his epic journey to the South Pole. Subjects include his companions, the ponies and sledges, the scientific work they were undertaking and the breathtaking Antarctic landscape.

̽��ֱ��photographs themselves were printed in the Antarctic by members of Scott’s team as they waited for his return from the Pole, and for most of the past 70 years were considered lost.

̽��ֱ��purchase of the photographs by SPRI will allow the images to be reunited with Scott's camera, which was given to the Institute by the late Lady Philippa Scott in 2008. Once they have been fully conserved, the photographs will be digitised and made available online.

“Scott’s photographs bring to life, in vivid detail, his party’s sledging journey into the interior of Antarctica,” says Dowdeswell. "From men and ponies struggling through deep snow, to panoramas of the Transantarctic Mountains, the images are very powerful. They are a superb complement to the Antarctic photographs of Herbert Ponting, which the Heritage Lottery Fund also helped us to acquire.”

Robyn Llewellyn, Head of Heritage Lottery Fund East of England, said “This stunning collection provides a fascinating insight into Captain Scott’s ill-fated Antarctic expedition. Although he was never to return, the research and records that were undertaken by his team are of historic and scientific importance. We at the Heritage Lottery Fund are delighted to play a part in bringing these photographs to the Scott Polar Research Institute where they will be conserved and made available for everyone to see.”

̽��ֱ��British Antarctic (Terra Nova) Expedition was led by Captain Robert Falcon Scott RN with the twin objectives of being the first to reach the geographical South Pole and to undertake scientific research on the Antarctic environment.

Scott and four companions attained the pole on 17 January 1912, to find that a Norwegian team led by Roald Amundsen had preceded them by 34 days. Scott's entire party died on the return journey from the pole. Some of their bodies, journals, and personal effects were discovered by a search party eight months later.

Captain Scott’s photographs were developed in the Antarctic by the geologist, Frank Debenham, who later became the founding Director of SPRI. ̽��ֱ��images were returned to the UK by members of the expedition in 1913 and it was intended that they be used to illustrate books, reports and lectures; however, difficulties with establishing copyright meant that only a handful were ever used.

̽��ֱ��First World War intervened and confusion over ownership was never resolved, any remaining negatives were lost and the prints passed to Herbert Ponting. On Ponting's death in 1935 the prints were sold to the photographic agency Popperfoto, who in turn sold them at auction in New York in 2001 and they have remained in private hands ever since.

As part of the centenary celebrations, SPRI has put on display a special exhibition ‘These Rough Notes: Capt. Scott’s Last Expedition’ which includes manuscript material from the planning of the expedition to the diaries of the men on the search party who discovered the fate of Scott and his men.

Tuesday 17 January 2012 marks the 100th anniversary of the first British team reaching the South Pole. Founded as a memorial to Captain Scott and his four companions, the Scott Polar Research Institute (SPRI) is marking the occasion with two days of celebrations.

̽��ֱ��Institute’s education and outreach activities are designed to encourage the next generation of young people to take up careers in polar science and to be inspired by Scott’s example.

Professor Julian Dowdeswell

Scott Polar Research Institute - Centenary of Scott reaching the Pole

Scott Polar Research Institute

Foundering in soft snow: Bowers' sledge team; Wilson pushing; Oates and PO Evans repairing, Beardmore Glacier, 13 December 1911

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