The British Antarctic Survey (BAS) is the United Kingdom's national polar research institute. It has a dual purpose, to conduct polar science, enabling better understanding of global issues, and to provide an active presence in the

Antarctic The Antarctic ( or , American English also or ; commonly ) is a polar region around Earth's South Pole, opposite the Arctic region around the North Pole. The Antarctic comprises the continent of Antarctica, the Kerguelen Plateau and othe ...

on behalf of the UK. It is part of the

Natural Environment Research Council The Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) is a British research council that supports research, training and knowledge transfer activities in the environmental sciences. History NERC began in 1965 when several environmental (mainly geog ...

(NERC). With over 400 staff, BAS takes an active role in Antarctic affairs, operating five

research station Research stations are facilities where scientific investigation, collection, analysis and experimentation occurs. A research station is a facility that is built for the purpose of conducting scientific research. There are also many types of resea ...

s, one ship and five aircraft in both polar regions, as well as addressing key global and regional issues. This involves joint research projects with over 40 UK universities and more than 120 national and international collaborations. Having taken shape from activities during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

, it was known as the Falkland Islands Dependencies Survey until 1962.

History

Operation Tabarin Operation Tabarin was the code name for a secret British expedition to the Antarctic during World War Two, operational 1943–46. Conducted by the Admiralty on behalf of the Colonial Office, its primary objective was to strengthen British claims t ...

was a small British expedition in 1943 to establish permanently occupied bases in the Antarctic. It was a joint undertaking by the

Admiralty Admiralty most often refers to: *Admiralty, Hong Kong *Admiralty (United Kingdom), military department in command of the Royal Navy from 1707 to 1964 *The rank of admiral *Admiralty law Admiralty can also refer to: Buildings * Admiralty, Traf ...

and the

Colonial Office The Colonial Office was a government department of the Kingdom of Great Britain and later of the United Kingdom, first created to deal with the colonial affairs of British North America but required also to oversee the increasing number of c ...

. At the end of the war it was renamed the

Falkland Islands Dependencies The Falkland Islands Dependencies was the constitutional arrangement from 1843 until 1985 for administering the various British territories in Sub-Antarctica and Antarctica which were governed from the Falkland Islands and its capital Port Sta ...

Survey (FIDS) and full control passed to the Colonial Office. At this time there were four stations, three occupied and one unoccupied. By the time FIDS was renamed the British Antarctic Survey in 1962, 19 stations and three refuges had been established. In 2012 the parent body, NERC, proposed merging the BAS with another NERC institute, National Oceanography Centre in Southampton. This proved controversial, and after the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee opposed the move the plan was dropped. Since April 2018 NERC has been part of UK Research and Innovation.

Directors

In 1956, the FID Scientific Bureau and FIDS Rear Base were combined into a single FIDS London Office, with a Director for the first time responsible for the whole London operation. * * * * * * * * *

Research stations

Antarctica

The BAS operates five permanent research stations in the

British Antarctic Territory The British Antarctic Territory (BAT) is a sector of Antarctica claimed by the United Kingdom as one of its 14 British Overseas Territories, of which it is by far the largest by area. It comprises the region south of 60°S latitude and between ...

: *

Rothera Research Station The Rothera Research Station is a British Antarctic Survey (BAS) base on the Antarctic Peninsula, located at Rothera Point, Adelaide Island. Rothera also serves as the capital of the British Antarctic Territory, a British Overseas Territ ...

Adelaide Island Adelaide Island is a large, mainly ice-covered island, long and wide, lying at the north side of Marguerite Bay off the west coast of the Antarctic Peninsula. The Ginger Islands lie off the southern end. Mount Bodys is the easternmost moun ...

Halley Research Station Halley Research Station is a research facility in Antarctica on the Brunt Ice Shelf operated by the British Antarctic Survey (BAS). The base was established in 1956 to study the Earth's atmosphere. Measurements from Halley led to the disco ...

on the

Brunt Ice Shelf The Brunt Ice Shelf borders the Antarctic coast of Coats Land between Dawson-Lambton Glacier and Stancomb-Wills Glacier Tongue. It was named by the UK Antarctic Place-names Committee after David Brunt, British meteorologist, Physical Secretary ...

* Signy Research Station on Signy Island *

Fossil Bluff Fossil Bluff is a seasonal British aircraft refuelling station located on the east coast of Alexander Island in Antarctica. In operation since 1961, its facilities provide fuel, storage, and ancillary support for British exploration and operation ...

logistics facility on

Alexander Island Alexander Island, which is also known as Alexander I Island, Alexander I Land, Alexander Land, Alexander I Archipelago, and Zemlja Alexandra I, is the largest island of Antarctica. It lies in the Bellingshausen Sea west of Palmer Land, Antarc ...

Sky Blu Sky Blu is a forward operating station for the British Antarctic Survey located in southern Palmer Land, Antarctica. It is in an area of blue ice, an extremely hard and dense ice which has lost the air bubbles that normally cloud the ice. It ...

logistics facility in

Ellsworth Land Ellsworth Land is a portion of the Antarctic continent bounded on the west by Marie Byrd Land, on the north by Bellingshausen Sea, on the northeast by the base of Antarctic Peninsula, and on the east by the western margin of the Filchner–Ronne ...

Of these Research Stations, only Rothera is manned throughout the year. Before 2017 Halley was also open year-round.

South Georgia

The BAS also operates two permanent bases on

South Georgia South Georgia ( es, Isla San Pedro) is an island in the South Atlantic Ocean that is part of the British Overseas Territory of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands. It lies around east of the Falkland Islands. Stretching in the east� ...

: *King Edward Point Research Station at

King Edward Point King Edward Point (also known as KEP) is a permanent British Antarctic Survey research station on South Georgia island and is the capital of the British Overseas Territory of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands. It is situated in Cumber ...

*Bird Island Research Station on Bird Island Both South Georgia bases are manned throughout the year.

Other sites

The headquarters of the BAS are in the university city of

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...

, on

Madingley Road Madingley Road is a major arterial road linking central Cambridge, England with Junction 13 of the M11 motorway. It passes by West Cambridge, a major new site where some University of Cambridge departments are being relocated. The road is design ...

. This facility provides offices, laboratories and workshops to support the scientific and logistic activities in the Antarctic. The BAS also operates the Ny-Ålesund Research Station on behalf of the NERC. This is an

Arctic The Arctic ( or ) is a polar regions of Earth, polar region located at the northernmost part of Earth. The Arctic consists of the Arctic Ocean, adjacent seas, and parts of Canada (Yukon, Northwest Territories, Nunavut), Danish Realm (Greenla ...

research base located at

Ny-Ålesund Ny-Ålesund ("New Ålesund") is a small town in Oscar II Land on the island of Spitsbergen in Svalbard, Norway. It is situated on the Brøgger peninsula (Brøggerhalvøya) and on the shore of the bay of Kongsfjorden. The company town is owned ...

on the Norwegian island of

Spitsbergen Spitsbergen (; formerly known as West Spitsbergen; Norwegian: ''Vest Spitsbergen'' or ''Vestspitsbergen'' , also sometimes spelled Spitzbergen) is the largest and the only permanently populated island of the Svalbard archipelago in northern Nor ...

Equipment

Ships

As of 2021, the Survey operates one ship, the

RRS Sir David Attenborough RRS ''Sir David Attenborough'' is a research vessel owned by the Natural Environment Research Council and operated by the British Antarctic Survey for the purposes of both research and logistic support. The ship replaces a pair of existing ves ...

, for support of Arctic and Antarctic research operations, and other logistical work. It replaced RRS James Clark Ross and RRS Ernest Shackleton, which was sold in 2021 and returned to its owners in 2019, respectively. Originally, the

provided the FIDS with ship support. In 1947 the Survey purchased their first vessel, which was named MV John Biscoe, and in 1953 the same ship was granted

Royal Research Ship A Royal Research Ship (RRS) is a merchant navy vessel of the United Kingdom that conducts scientific research for His Majesty's Government. Organisations operating such ships include; the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), the British ...

status. Since then the Survey has owned and chartered several vessels. Vessels depart from the United Kingdom in September or October of each year and return to the United Kingdom in the following May or June. Vessels undergo refit and drydock during the Antarctic winter, but are also used elsewhere during this period. The civilian ships operated by the BAS are complemented by the capabilities of the

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against Fr ...

's ice patrol vessel that operates in the same waters. Until 2008 this was , a Class 1A1

icebreaker An icebreaker is a special-purpose ship or boat designed to move and navigate through ice-covered waters, and provide safe waterways for other boats and ships. Although the term usually refers to ice-breaking ships, it may also refer to smaller ...

. ''Endurance's'' two Lynx helicopters enabled BAS staff to get to remote field sites that BAS aircraft could not access. However, a catastrophic flooding accident left ''Endurance'' badly damaged, with a replacement only being procured in 2011. This ship, , first deployed to the Antarctic in November 2011.

Aircraft

BAS operates five aircraft in support of its research programme in

Antarctica Antarctica () is Earth's southernmost and least-populated continent. Situated almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle and surrounded by the Southern Ocean, it contains the geographic South Pole. Antarctica is the fifth-largest cont ...

. The aircraft used are all made by

de Havilland Canada De Havilland Aircraft of Canada Limited is an aircraft manufacturer with facilities formerly based in the Downsview area of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The original home of de Havilland Canada was the home of the Canadian Air and Space Museum lo ...

and comprise four Twin Otters and one Dash 7 (as of August 2019). The planes are maintained by Rocky Mountain Aircraft in Springbank,

Alberta Alberta ( ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is part of Western Canada and is one of the three prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to the west, Saskatchewan to the east, the Northwest T ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by to ...

. During the Antarctic summer the aircraft are based at the Rothera base, which has a 900-metre gravel runway. During the Antarctic winter, conditions preclude flying and the aircraft return to Canada. The larger Dash 7 undertakes regular shuttle flights between either

Port Stanley Airport Port Stanley Airport is an airport in the Falkland Islands, outside the capital, Stanley. The airport is the only civilian airport in the islands with a paved runway. However, RAF Mount Pleasant, located to the west of Stanley, functions a ...

on the

Falkland Islands The Falkland Islands (; es, Islas Malvinas, link=no ) is an archipelago in the South Atlantic Ocean on the Patagonian Shelf. The principal islands are about east of South America's southern Patagonian coast and about from Cape Dubouze ...

, or

Punta Arenas Punta Arenas (; historically Sandy Point in English) is the capital city of Chile's southernmost region, Magallanes and Antarctica Chilena. The city was officially renamed as Magallanes in 1927, but in 1938 it was changed back to "Punta Are ...

in Chile, and Rothera. It also operates to and from the ice runway at the Sky Blu base. The smaller Twin Otters are equipped with skis for landing on snow and ice in remote areas, and operate out of the bases at Rothera, Fossil Bluff, Halley and Sky Blu.

Findings

In 1985, the British Antarctic Survey discovered the hole in the ozone layer over Antarctica. The finding was made by a team of three BAS scientists:

Joe Farman Joseph Charles Farman CBE (7 August 193011 May 2013) was a British geophysicist who worked for the British Antarctic Survey. Together with Brian Gardiner and Jon Shanklin, he published the discovery of the ozone hole over Antarctica, having us ...

, Brian Gardiner and

Jonathan Shanklin Jonathan Shanklin is a meteorologist who has worked at the British Antarctic Survey since 1977. Together with Joe Farman and Brian G. Gardiner he discovered the "Ozone Hole" in the 1980s. Shanklin has described his role at the BAS as being t ...

. Their work was confirmed by satellite data, and was met with worldwide concern. In January 2008, a team of British Antarctic Survey scientists, led by Hugh Corr and David Vaughan, reported that 2,200 years ago, a

volcano A volcano is a rupture in the crust of a planetary-mass object, such as Earth, that allows hot lava, volcanic ash, and gases to escape from a magma chamber below the surface. On Earth, volcanoes are most often found where tectonic plates ...

erupted under Antarctica's ice sheet (based on airborne survey with radar images). The biggest eruption in the last 10,000 years, the volcanic ash was found deposited on the ice surface under the

Hudson Mountains The Hudson Mountains are a mountain range in western Ellsworth Land just east of Cranton Bay and Pine Island Bay at the eastern extremity of Amundsen Sea. They are of volcanic origin, consisting of low scattered mountains and nunataks that prot ...

, close to

Pine Island Glacier Pine Island Glacier (PIG) is a large ice stream, and the fastest melting glacier in Antarctica, responsible for about 25% of Antarctica's ice loss. The glacier ice streams flow west-northwest along the south side of the Hudson Mountains into Pine ...

. In 2020, a team reported that

emperor penguin The emperor penguin (''Aptenodytes forsteri'') is the tallest and heaviest of all living penguin species and is endemic to Antarctica. The male and female are similar in plumage and size, reaching in length and weighing from . Feathers of t ...

colonies in

were nearly 20% more numerous than previously thought, with new discoveries made using satellite mapping technology.

Polar image collection

The BAS runs an onlin
polar image collection
which includes imagery of scientific research at the poles, logistics operations, and the continent and its wildlife. The image collection is run by British cameraman and photographer Pete Bucktrout, who has visited the continent eleven times during his 24 years working for BAS. His work has been seen in newspapers and on television around the world.

Notes

References

External links

*
Polar Picture Library

Discovering Antarctica — teaching and learning resources on Antarctica

BAS science programmes

BAS research stations

BAS Online Palaeontology Collection

BAS history

British Antarctic Oral History Project
- Includes interviews with many who served with Tabarin, FIDS and BAS.
BAS Club
- A membership club for those employed by, or closely associated with, BAS and its predecessors (Operation Tabarin, FIDS) {{Authority control Antarctic agencies British Antarctic Territory Buildings and structures in Cambridge Natural Environment Research Council Scientific organizations established in 1943 Organisations based in Cambridge Environment of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands United Kingdom and the Antarctic Buildings and structures in South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands Partner institutions of the University of Cambridge