CPOM News
Steve Palmer awarded a Japan Society for the Promotion of Science fellowship
May 2008
Steve Palmer has been awarded a fellowship by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science to fund a visit to the Japanese National Institute for Polar Research (NIPR). Whilst at NIPR, Steve will use satellite remote sensing to observe changes in the velocity of the Shirase glacier in East Antarctica. The fellowship covers the costs of a three month visit, which Steve expects to take up some time during the next year.
Dr Andrew Shepherd wins Philip Leverhulme Prize 2007
September 2007
The Philip Leverhulme Prizes were established to reward outstanding young scholars of substantial distinction and promise; the Prizes commemorate the late Third Viscount Leverhulme, who died in 2000. The prize announcement states:
"Dr Shepherd's research uses satellite remote sensing to advance our understanding of the motion of large ice sheets, such as those in Greenland and Antarctica. Using sophisticated quantitative techniques, he has been able to provide continental-scale information on the rate and pattern of ice sheet melt over periods of several years. As a result, he is an authority on how large ice sheets are resonding to and influencing global environments, and is making major contributions to our understanding of global environmental change more generally."
Science paper on Sea-level contributions of the polar ice sheets
16 March 2007
After a century of polar exploration, the past decade of satellite measurements has painted an altogether new picture of how Earth's ice sheets are changing. As global temperatures have risen, so have rates of snowfall, ice melting, and glacier flow. Although the balance between these opposing processes has varied considerably on a regional scale, data show that Antarctica and Greenland are each losing mass overall. Click here to see the paper and links to other related Science articles.
Articles relating to the paper can also be found in the Guardian, Independent and Washington Post.
CPOM research featured in New Scientist
2 December 2006
CPOM research on a rapid discharge from an Antarctic sub-glacial lake recently published in Nature has been
featured on the front cover of the 2nd December special issue of the New Scientist on the "Hidden World Beneath Antarctica's Ice". The full article and New Scientist's weekly podcast discussing this feature can be found on the New Scientist website.
Dr Daniel Feltham wins Philip Leverhulme Prize 2006
November 2006
The Philip Leverhulme Prizes were established to reward outstanding young scholars of substantial distinction and promise. The prize announcement states:
"Daniel Feltham has made major contributions to our understanding of the formation of ice in polar seas. This plays an important role in the interaction between the polar oceans and the overlying atmosphere and has a long-term effect on climate. He has developed theoretical models, confirmed by laboratory experimentation and tested against data from field experiments, of the mechanical and thermodynamic properties of sea ice. Of particular importance is his model, one of the very first in this area, of the evolution of melt-water ponds which form on the surface of ice during the summer. These melt ponds can considerably lower the albedo, which is a measure of the reflectivity and hence the degree of input solar radiation that is reflected, rather than captured, of the Earth's surface. Dr Feltham has already established himself as one of the scientific leaders in this field, building a group tackling central problems in this area. His future research will focus on the interactions between polar oceans, sea ice and ice shelves and the processes that drive the global redistribution of heat by the ocean."
Nature paper on Antarctic subglacial lakes
April 2006
The existence of many subglacial lakes provides clear evidence for the widespread presence of water beneath the Antarctic ice sheet. Recent studies by CPOM staff of ice-sheet surface elevation changes indicate that these lakes, far from being a static ecosystem cut off from each other, are in fact connected. Changes indicating a rapid discharge of water from one lake to another were detected, and it is possible that the entire subglacial drainage basin is flushed through periodically by massive water transfers. Click here to see the paper and links to other related Nature articles. 
ESA confirms CryoSat recovery mission ESA PR 08-2006
Feb 2006
At the latest meeting of the European Space Agency's Earth Observation Programme Board, which took place at ESA's Headquarters in Paris on 23 and 24 February, ESA received the green light from its Member States to build and launch a CryoSat recovery mission, CryoSat-2. The launch of the CryoSat spacecraft was unfortunately aborted on 8 October 2005 due to a malfunction of its Rockot launcher, which resulted in the total loss of the spacecraft.