Antarctic Peninsula Long Term Environmental Monitoring and Surveying

Examples include the ongoing collection of the temperature record which shows that the Antarctic Peninsula is experiencing an exceptionally rapid rate of warming, and the ozone record which resulted in the discovery, by BAS scientists, of the ozone hole - a result that led to major changes in environmental legislation and industrial practice worldwide.

It will also include survey work, such as using the swath bathymetry system of the RRS James Clark Ross, to map unexplored regions of the sea bed, and the recently-commissioned polarimetric airborne radar to map the internal structure and bedrock of the Antarctic ice sheet. To measure change and variability in the Earth system we need quality-controlled, uninterrupted, long-term data records.The models used to simulate and predict the behaviour of this system also need such data to allow us to check and improve their reliability.