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One of the key components of this research has been the mapping of Antarctic bed topography and ice thickness parameters that are crucial for modelling ice flow and hence for predicting future ice loss and the ensuing sea level rise. Supported by the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR), the Bedmap3 Action Group aims not only to produce new gridded maps of ice thickness and bed topography for the international scientific community, but also to standardize and make available all the geophysical survey data points used in producing the Bedmap gridded products. Here, we document the survey data used in the latest iteration, Bedmap3, incorporating and adding to all of the datasets previously used for Bedmap1 and Bedmap2, including ice bed, surface and thickness point data from all Antarctic geophysical campaigns since the 1950s. More specifically, we describe the processes used to standardize and make these and future surveys and gridded datasets accessible under the Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable (FAIR) data principles. With the goals of making the gridding process reproducible and allowing scientists to re-use the data freely for their own analysis, we introduce the new SCAR Bedmap Data Portal (https://bedmap.scar.org, last access: 1 March 2023) created to provide unprecedented open access to these important datasets through a web-map interface. We believe that this data release will be a valuable asset to Antarctic research and will greatly extend the life cycle of the data held within it. Data are available from the UK Polar Data Centre: https://data.bas.ac.uk (last access: 5 May 2023​​​​​​​). See the Data availability section for the complete list of datasets.

Funder: Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland; doi: https://doi.org/10.13039/501100000582, Funder: Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation (Prince Albert II Foundation); doi: https://doi.org/10.13039/501100011592, Funder: Scottish Alliance for Geoscience, Environment and Society (SAGES); doi: https://doi.org/10.13039/100008083, West Antarctica has experienced dramatic ice losses contributing to global sea-level rise in recent decades, particularly from Pine Island and Thwaites glaciers. Although these ice losses manifest an ongoing Marine Ice Sheet Instability, projections of their future rate are confounded by limited observations along West Antarctica's coastal perimeter with respect to how the pace of retreat can be modulated by variations in climate forcing. Here, we derive a comprehensive, 12-year record of glacier retreat around West Antarctica's Pacific-facing margin and compare this dataset to contemporaneous estimates of ice flow, mass loss, the state of the Southern Ocean and the atmosphere. Between 2003 and 2015, rates of glacier retreat and acceleration were extensive along the Bellingshausen Sea coastline, but slowed along the Amundsen Sea. We attribute this to an interdecadal suppression of westerly winds in the Amundsen Sea, which reduced warm water inflow to the Amundsen Sea Embayment. Our results provide direct observations that the pace, magnitude and extent of ice destabilization around West Antarctica vary by location, with the Amundsen Sea response most sensitive to interdecadal atmosphere-ocean variability. Thus, model projections accounting for regionally resolved ice-ocean-atmosphere interactions will be important for predicting accurately the short-term evolution of the Antarctic Ice Sheet., Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland Carnegie PhD Scholarship Scottish Alliance for Geoscience, Environment and Society (SAGES) Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation NSF Grant 2045075 European Space Agency

The precise environmental mechanisms controlling Quaternary glacial cycles remain ambiguous. To address this problem, it is critical to better comprehend the drivers of spatio-temporal variability in ice-sheet evolution by establishing reliable chronologies of former outlet-glacier advances. When spanning multiple glacial cycles, such chronologies have the capacity to contribute to knowledge on the topic of interhemispheric phasing of glaciations and climate events. In southern Argentina, reconstructions of this kind are achievable, as Quaternary expansions of the Patagonian Ice Sheet have emplaced a well-preserved geomorphological record covering several glacial cycles. Moreover, robust ice-sheet reconstructions from Patagonia are powerful barometers of former climate change, as Patagonian glaciers are influenced by the Southern Westerly Winds and the Antarctic Circumpolar Current coupled to them. It is essential to better constrain former shifts in these circulation mechanisms as they may have played a critical role in pacing regional and possibly global Quaternary climate change. Here, we present a new set of cosmogenic 10Be and 26Al exposure ages from pre-Last Glacial Cycle moraine boulder, glaciofluvial outwash cobble, and bedrock samples. This dataset constitutes the first direct chronology dating pre-Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) glacier advances in northern Patagonia and completes our effort to date the entire preserved moraine record of the Río Corcovado valley system (43∘ S, 71∘ W). We find that the outermost margins of the study site depict at least three distinct pre-Last Glacial Cycle stadials occurring around 290–270, 270–245, and 130–150 ka. Combined with the local LGM chronology, we discover that a minimum of four distinct Pleistocene stadials occurred during Marine Isotope Stages 8, 6, and 2 in northern Patagonia. Evidence for Marine Isotope Stage 4 and 3 deposits were not found at the study site. This may illustrate former longitudinal and latitudinal asynchronies in the Patagonian Ice Sheet mass balance during these Marine Isotope Stages. We find that the most extensive middle-to-late Pleistocene expansions of the Patagonian Ice Sheet appear to be out of phase with local summer insolation intensity but synchronous with orbitally controlled periods of longer and colder winters. Our findings thus enable the exploration of the potential roles of seasonality and seasonal duration in driving the southern mid-latitude ice-sheet mass balance, and they facilitate novel glacio-geomorphological interpretations for the study region. They also provide empirical constraints on former ice-sheet extent and dynamics that are essential for calibrating numerical ice-sheet and glacial isostatic adjustment models.

Model reconstruction of past ice dynamic changes are essential for our understanding of future ice sheet responses to climate change. However, paleo ice sheet model studies are poorly constrained as spatiotemporal coverage of proxy reconstructions are sparse. Previously, we showed, that it is possible to identify or exclude past ice sheet instabilities by using the isotopic record and age structure of a deep ice core in vicinity to dynamic outlet sectors as a constraint for flow parameterizations in an ice sheet model. Here, we highlight key Antarctic ice sheet domains in which deep ice cores in concert with radar observations of the ice sheet’s stratigraphy hold great potential to provide an even more rigid observational tuning target for ice flow models. In some of these regions dated deep ice cores are already available, often including coverage of internal reflection horizons potentially connecting the ice core age structure with faster flowing outlet sectors. In other regions either an ice core providing age constraints or radar observations are not yet available. We discuss the potential of ice core/stratigraphically calibrated ice flow modelling of dynamic Antarctic drainage systems. Furthermore, we present first model estimates of the age structure in these regions and identify promising sites for future ice coring expeditions or ice penetrating radar missions.

In this study, we compare equilibrium-line altitudes (ELAs) calculated using the area–altitude balance ratio (AABR) and the accumulation–area ratio (AAR) methods, with measured ELAs derived from direct field observations. We utilise a GIS toolbox to calculate the ELA for 64 extant glaciers by applying the AABR and AAR methods to DEMs and polygons of their geometry. The calculated ELAs (c-ELAs) are then compared to measured zero-net balance ELAs (znb-ELAs) obtained from mass-balance time series held by the WGMS for the same glaciers. The correlation between znb-ELAs and AABR (1.56)/AAR (0.58) c-ELAs is very strong, with an r2 = 0.99. The smallest median difference between znb-ELAs and c-ELAs (i.e. 65.5 m) is obtained when a globally representative AABR of 1.56 is used. When applied to palaeoglacier-climate applications, this difference translates to ~0.42°C, well within the uncertainty of palaeotemperature proxies used to determine mean summer temperature at the ELA. The more widely used mean AABR of 1.75 is shown to be statistically invalid due to the skewness of the dataset. On this basis, when calculating glacier ELAs, we recommend the use of a global AABR value of 1.56.

The retreating Pine Island Glacier (PIG), West Antarctica, presently contributes ~5–10% of global sea-level rise. PIG’s retreat rate has increased in recent decades with associated thinning migrating upstream into tributaries feeding the main glacier trunk. To project future change requires modelling that includes robust parameterisation of basal traction, the resistance to ice flow at the bed. However, most ice-sheet models estimate basal traction from satellite-derived surface velocity, without a priori knowledge of the key processes from which it is derived, namely friction at the ice-bed interface and form drag, and the resistance to ice flow that arises as ice deforms to negotiate bed topography. Here, we present high-resolution maps, acquired using ice-penetrating radar, of the bed topography across parts of PIG. Contrary to lower-resolution data currently used for ice-sheet models, these data show a contrasting topography across the ice-bed interface. We show that these diverse subglacial landscapes have an impact on ice flow, and present a challenge for modelling ice-sheet evolution and projecting global sea-level rise from ice-sheet loss., Projecting the future retreat and thus global sea level contributions of Antarctica’s Pine Island Glacier is hampered by a poor grasp of what controls flow at the ice base. Here, via high-resolution ice-radar imaging, the authors show diverse landscapes beneath the glacier fundamentally influence ice flow.

Marine-terminating glaciers in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago have retreated in response to atmospheric, not oceanic, warming., The Canadian Arctic Archipelago contains >300 glaciers that terminate in the ocean, but little is known about changes in their frontal positions in response to recent changes in the ocean-climate system. Here, we examine changes in glacier frontal positions since the 1950s and investigate the relative influence of oceanic temperature versus atmospheric temperature. Over 94% of glaciers retreated between 1958 and 2015, with a region-wide trend of gradual retreat before ~2000, followed by a fivefold increase in retreat rates up to 2015. Retreat patterns show no correlation with changes in subsurface ocean temperatures, in clear contrast to the dominance of ocean forcing in western Greenland and elsewhere. Rather, significant correlations with surface melt indicate that increased atmospheric temperature has been the primary driver of the acceleration in marine-terminating glacier frontal retreat in this region.

Over the past 20 years satellite remote sensing has captured significant downwasting of glaciers that drain the West Antarctic Ice Sheet into the ocean, particularly across the Amundsen Sea Sector. Along the neighbouring Marie Byrd Land Sector, situated west of Thwaites Glacier to Ross Ice Shelf, glaciological change has been only sparsely monitored. Here, we use optical satellite imagery to track grounding-line migration along the Marie Byrd Land Sector between 2003 and 2015, and compare observed changes with ICESat and CryoSat-2-derived surface elevation and thickness change records. During the observational period, 33% of the grounding line underwent retreat, with no significant advance recorded over the remainder of the ∼ 2200km long coastline. The greatest retreat rates were observed along the 650km-long Getz Ice Shelf, further west of which only minor retreat occurred. The relative glaciological stability west of Getz Ice Shelf can be attributed to a divergence of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current from the continental-shelf break at 135°W, coincident with a transition in the morphology of the continental shelf. Along Getz Ice Shelf, grounding-line retreat reduced by 68% during the CryoSat-2 era relative to earlier observations. Climate reanalysis data imply that wind-driven upwelling of Circumpolar Deep Water would have been reduced during this later period, suggesting that the observed slowdown was a response to reduced oceanic forcing. However, lack of comprehensive oceanographic and bathymetric information proximal to Getz Ice Shelf's grounding zone make it difficult to assess the role of intrinsic glacier dynamics, or more complex ice-sheet–ocean interactions, in moderating this slowdown. Collectively, our findings underscore the importance of spatial and inter-decadal variability in atmosphere and ocean interactions in moderating glaciological change around Antarctica.

Over the past 20 years satellite remote sensing has captured significant downwasting of glaciers that drain the West Antarctic Ice Sheet into the ocean, particularly across the Amundsen Sea Sector. Along the neighbouring Marie Byrd Land Sector, situated west of Thwaites Glacier to Ross Ice Shelf, glaciological change has been only sparsely monitored. Here, we use optical satellite imagery to track grounding-line migration along the Marie Byrd Land Sector between 2003 and 2015, and compare observed changes with ICESat and CryoSat-2-derived surface elevation and thickness change records. During the observational period, 33% of the grounding line underwent retreat, with no significant advance recorded over the remainder of the ∼ 2200km long coastline. The greatest retreat rates were observed along the 650km-long Getz Ice Shelf, further west of which only minor retreat occurred. The relative glaciological stability west of Getz Ice Shelf can be attributed to a divergence of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current from the continental-shelf break at 135°W, coincident with a transition in the morphology of the continental shelf. Along Getz Ice Shelf, grounding-line retreat reduced by 68% during the CryoSat-2 era relative to earlier observations. Climate reanalysis data imply that wind-driven upwelling of Circumpolar Deep Water would have been reduced during this later period, suggesting that the observed slowdown was a response to reduced oceanic forcing. However, lack of comprehensive oceanographic and bathymetric information proximal to Getz Ice Shelf's grounding zone make it difficult to assess the role of intrinsic glacier dynamics, or more complex ice-sheet–ocean interactions, in moderating this slowdown. Collectively, our findings underscore the importance of spatial and inter-decadal variability in atmosphere and ocean interactions in moderating glaciological change around Antarctica.

Pine Island Glacier Ice-Shelf (PIGIS) has been thinning rapidly over recent decades, resulting in a progressive drawdown of the inland ice and an upstream migration of the grounding line. The resultant ice loss from Pine Island Glacier (PIG) and its neighboring ice streams presently contributes an estimated ∼10% to global sea-level rise, motivating efforts to constrain better the rate of future ice retreat. One route towards gaining a better understanding of the processes required to underpin physically-based projections is provided by examining assemblages of landforms and sediment exposed over recent decades by the ongoing ungrounding of PIG. Here we present high-resolution bathymetry and sub-bottom-profiler data acquired by autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) surveys beneath PIGIS in 2009 and 2014 respectively. We identify landforms and sediments associated with grounded-ice flow, proglacial and subglacial sediment transport, overprinting of lightly-grounded ice-shelf keels and stepwise grounding-line retreat. The location of a submarine ridge (Jenkins Ridge) coincides with a transition from exposed crystalline bedrock to abundant sediment cover potentially linked to a thick sedimentary basin extending upstream of the modern grounding line. The capability of acquiring high-resolution data from AUV platforms enable observations of landforms and understanding of processes on a scale that is not possible in standard offshore geophysical surveys.

The West Antarctic Ice Sheet overlies the West Antarctic Rift System about which, due to the comprehensive ice cover, we have only limited and sporadic knowledge of volcanic activity and its extent. Improving our understanding of subglacial volcanic activity across the province is important both for helping to constrain how volcanism and rifting may have influenced ice-sheet growth and decay over previous glacial cycles, and in light of concerns over whether enhanced geothermal heat fluxes and subglacial melting may contribute to instability of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. Here, we use ice-sheet bed-elevation data to locate individual conical edifices protruding upwards into the ice across West Antarctica, and we propose that these edifices represent subglacial volcanoes. We used aeromagnetic, aerogravity, satellite imagery and databases of confirmed volcanoes to support this interpretation. The overall result presented here constitutes a first inventory of West Antarctica's subglacial volcanism. We identified 138 volcanoes, 91 of which have not previously been identified, and which are widely distributed throughout the deep basins of West Antarctica, but are especially concentrated and orientated along the >3000 km central axis of the West Antarctic Rift System.

Changes to the grounding line, where grounded ice starts to float, can be used as a remotely-sensed measure of ice-sheet susceptibility to ocean-forced dynamic thinning. Constraining this susceptibility is vital for predicting Antarctica's contribution to rising sea levels. We use Landsat imagery to monitor grounding line movement over four decades along the Bellingshausen margin of West Antarctica, an area little monitored despite potential for future ice losses. We show that ~65% of the grounding line retreated from 1990-2015, with pervasive and accelerating retreat in regions of fast ice flow and/or thinning ice shelves. Venable Ice Shelf confounds expectations in that despite extensive thinning, its grounding line has undergone negligible retreat. We present evidence that the ice shelf is currently pinned to a sub-ice topographic high which, if breached, could facilitate ice retreat into a significant inland basin, analogous to nearby Pine Island Glacier.

The aerodynamic roughness of glacier surfaces is an important component of energy balance models and meltwater runoff estimates through its influence on turbulent fluxes of latent and sensible heat. In a warming climate these fluxes are predicted to become more significant in contributing to overall melt volumes. Ice aerodynamic roughness (z0) is commonly estimated from measurements of ice surface microtopography, typically from topographic profiles taken perpendicular to the prevailing wind direction. Recent advances in surveying permit rapid acquisition of high resolution topographic data allowing revision of assumptions underlying conventional topographic profile-based z0 measurement. This paper presents alternative methods of estimating z0 directly from Digital Elevation Models (DEMs) or three-dimensional point clouds, and examines the spatial and temporal variability of z0 across the ablation zone of a small Arctic glacier. Using Structure-from-Motion (SfM) photogrammetry to survey ice surfaces with millimeter-scale accuracy, z0 variation over three orders of magnitude was observed but was unrelated to large scale topographic variables such as elevation or slope. Different surface-types demonstrated different temporal trajectories in z0 through three days of intense melt, though the observed temporal z0 variability was lower than the spatial variability. A glacier-scale topographic model was obtained through Terrestrial Laser Scanning (TLS) and sub-grid roughness was significantly related to z0 calculated from a 2 m resolution DEM. Thus, glacier scale TLS or SfM surveys can characterize z0 variability over a glacier surface and allow distributed representations of z0 in surface energy balance models.

We use high-resolution ground-penetrating radar (GPR) to assess the continuity of the Blue Ice Area (BIA) horizontal climate record at Patriot Hills, Horseshoe Valley, West Antarctica. The sequence contains three pronounced changes in deuterium isotopic values at ~18 cal ka, ~12 cal ka, and ~8 cal ka. GPR surveys along the climate sequence reveal continuous, conformable dipping isochrones, separated by two unconformities in the isochrone layers, which correlate with the two older deuterium shifts. We interpret these unconformities as discontinuities in the sequence, rather than direct measures of climate change. Ice sheet models and Internal Layer Continuity Index plots suggest that the unconformities represent periods of erosion occurring, as the former ice surface was scoured by katabatic winds in front of mountains at the head of Horseshoe Valley. This study demonstrates the importance of high-resolution GPR surveys for investigating both paleoflow dynamics and interpreting BIA climate records.

Recent studies have aroused concerns over the potential for ice draining the Weddell Sea sector of West Antarctica to figure more prominently in sea-level contributions should buttressing from the Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf diminish. To improve understanding of how ice-stream dynamics there evolved through the Holocene, we interrogate Radio-Echo Sounding (RES) data from across the catchments of Institute and Möller Ice Streams (IIS and MIS), focusing especially on the use of internal layering to investigate ice-flow change. As an important component of this work, we investigate the influence that the orientation of the RES acquisition-track with respect to ice flow exerts on internal layering, and find that this influence is minimal unless a RES flight track parallels ice flow. We also investigate potential changes to internal layering characteristics with depth to search for important temporal transitions in ice-flow regime. Our findings suggest that ice in northern IIS, draining the Ellsworth Subglacial Highlands, has retained its present ice-flow configuration throughout the Holocene. This contrasts with less topographically-constrained ice in southern IIS and much of MIS, whose internal layering evinces spatial changes to the configuration of ice flow over the past ~10,000 years. Our findings confirm Siegert et al.’s (2013) inference that fast flow was diverted from Bungenstock Ice Rise during the Late Holocene, and suggest that this may have represented just one component of wider regional changes to ice flow occurring across the IIS and MIS catchments as the West Antarctic Ice Sheet has thinned since the Last Glacial Maximum.

Recent studies have aroused concerns over the potential for ice draining the Weddell Sea sector of West Antarctica to figure more prominently in sea-level contributions should buttressing from the Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf diminish. To improve understanding of how ice-stream dynamics there evolved through the Holocene, we interrogate Radio-Echo Sounding (RES) data from across the catchments of Institute and Möller Ice Streams (IIS and MIS), focusing especially on the use of internal layering to investigate ice-flow change. As an important component of this work, we investigate the influence that the orientation of the RES acquisition-track with respect to ice flow exerts on internal layering, and find that this influence is minimal unless a RES flight track parallels ice flow. We also investigate potential changes to internal layering characteristics with depth to search for important temporal transitions in ice-flow regime. Our findings suggest that ice in northern IIS, draining the Ellsworth Subglacial Highlands, has retained its present ice-flow configuration throughout the Holocene. This contrasts with less topographically-constrained ice in southern IIS and much of MIS, whose internal layering evinces spatial changes to the configuration of ice flow over the past ~10,000 years. Our findings confirm Siegert et al.’s (2013) inference that fast flow was diverted from Bungenstock Ice Rise during the Late Holocene, and suggest that this may have represented just one component of wider regional changes to ice flow occurring across the IIS and MIS catchments as the West Antarctic Ice Sheet has thinned since the Last Glacial Maximum.

Several recent studies predict that the West Antarctic Ice Sheet will become increasingly unstable under warmer conditions. Insights on such change can be assisted through investigations of the subglacial landscape, which contains imprints of former ice-sheet behavior. Here, we present radio-echo sounding data and satellite imagery revealing a series of ancient large sub-parallel subglacial bed channels preserved in the region between the Möller and Foundation Ice Streams, West Antarctica. We suggest that these newly recognized channels were formed by significant meltwater routed along the icesheet bed. The volume of water required is likely substantial and can most easily be explained by water generated at the ice surface. The Greenland Ice Sheet today exemplifies how significant seasonal surface melt can be transferred to the bed via englacial routing. For West Antarctica, the Pliocene (2.6–5.3 Ma) represents the most recent sustained period when temperatures could have been high enough to generate surface melt comparable to that of present-day Greenland. We propose, therefore, that a temperate ice sheet covered this location during Pliocene warm periods.

Flood-carved landforms across the deglaciated terrain of Victoria Land, East Antarctica, provide convincing geomorphological evidence for the existence of subglacial drainage networks beneath the Antarctic Ice Sheets, and motivate research into the inaccessible environment beneath the current ice sheet. Unlike at temperate glaciers, and more recently Arctic glaciers, where numerous researchers have explicitly studied “subglacial hydrology,” the acquisition of knowledge about subglacial hydrology in Antarctica has often been a side effect of geophysical and remote-sensing programmes targeted at multiple objectives. Through this research, however, we are steadily building an understanding of Antarctic subglacial hydrology, and this article presents an overview of the current state of knowledge. We first contextualise the discussion by introducing how our conceptualisation of subglacial hydrological behaviour has been developed at temperate and Arctic glaciers, but is less mature in the Antarctic, where our knowledge of subglacial-melt generation and variability, in particular, remain poorly constrained. We overview the discovery and progressive understanding of subglacial lake systems, whereby recent geophysical and remote-sensing observations have shown us that many lakes, once thought to be isolated and stable, form part of a highly dynamic network of subglacial drainage beneath the ice sheet. We then discuss some of the latest findings concerning subglacial water flows other than those directly concerned with lakes. Such water flows have potentially significant impacts on ice-stream dynamics, ice-sheet mass-balance, and supplies of water to the ocean potentially affecting circulation and nutrient productivity. We close by identifying some of the grand challenges that lie ahead for improving our understanding of these processes further.

The West Antarctic ice sheet (WAIS) has long been considered vulnerable to rapid retreat and today parts are rapidly losing ice. Projection of future change in WAIS is, however, hampered by our poor understanding of past changes, especially during interglacial periods that could be analogs for the future, but which undoubtedly provide an opportunity for testing predictive models. We consider how ice-loss would open seaways across WAIS; these would likely alter Southern Ocean circulation and climate, and would broadly define the de-glacial state, but they may also have left evidence of their existence in the coastal seas they once connected. We show the most likely routes for such seaways, and that a direct seaway between Weddell and Ross seas, which did not pass through the Amundsen Sea sector, is unlikely. Continued ice-loss at present rates would open seaways between Amundsen and Weddell seas (A-W), and Amundsen and Bellingshausen seas (A-B), in around one thousand years. This timescale indicates potential future vulnerability, but also suggests seaways may have opened in recent interglacial periods. We attempt to test this hypothesis using contemporary bryozoan species assemblages around Antarctica, concluding that anomalously high similarity in assemblages in the Weddell and Amundsen seas supports recent migration through A-W. Other authors have suggested opening of seaways last occurred during Marine Isotope Stage 7a (209 ka BP), but we conclude that opening could have occurred in MIS 5e (100 ka BP) when Antarctica was warmer than present and likely contributed to global sea levels higher than today.