Related talks@cam

It’s hard to believe that we’re not living in a hellish satire. A blatant disregard for science; wilful programs of denial, doom and delay; and a rejection of evidence in favour of the political flavour du jour. Keeping one’s head against the rising tide of mis- and disinformation has never felt harder, but it’s never been more important for polar scientists to talk about their work and what it means. In this talk I’ll showcase some of the cutting-edge, high-resolution Antarctic regional climate model simulations I helped create as part of the PolarRES project and implore you to use them to answer the planet’s pressing polar research questions. Then, I’ll make a case for why you should share that research far and wide to fight the rising tide.

Speaker: Dr. Ella Gilbert
Thursday 12 March 2026, 15:00-16:00
Venue: Scott Polar Research Institute.
Series: Scott Polar Research Institute - Polar Physical Sciences Seminar; organiser: meh91.

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Mon 16 Mar 13:00: Exploring Mechanistic Interactions that Shape the Biological Carbon Pump: Do We Know Enough to Predict Its Future?

Wed, 11/03/2026 - 14:41

Exploring Mechanistic Interactions that Shape the Biological Carbon Pump: Do We Know Enough to Predict Its Future?

The biological carbon pump (BCP) plays a central role in regulating Earth’s climate by mediating the uptake and export of carbon from the surface ocean to the deep sea. Current global models estimate that between 5 and 12 gigatons of organic carbon are exported to the deep ocean each year. However, projections for the end of the century remain highly uncertain: models disagree on whether carbon export will increase or decrease across approximately 84% of the global ocean. This uncertainty highlights critical gaps in our understanding of the mechanisms that regulate the efficiency of the BCP . In this talk, I will present recent findings from my research group that investigate the mechanistic interactions shaping the biological carbon pump. We examine processes ranging from resource competition among plankton to the role of organismal vertical migration, integrating observations across multiple spatial and temporal scales. By combining laboratory incubations, field observations, and data from autonomous platforms, our work aims to identify the biological and ecological drivers that control carbon export and to improve the representation of these processes in predictive models. Together, these approaches provide new insights into the processes governing ocean carbon sequestration and help address whether we currently possess the mechanistic understanding needed to reliably predict the future of the biological carbon pump.

Speaker: Lavenia Ratnarajah, UCL
Monday 16 March 2026, 13:00-14:00
Venue: MR3, CMS.
Series: Quantitative Climate and Environmental Science Seminars; organiser: Kasia Warburton.

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Wed 18 Mar 14:00: Polar Oceans Seminar Talk - Andrew Styles If you are external to BAS and would like to attend please reach out to the organisers before the talk and arrive at reception 10 minutes before so we can let you in.

Mon, 09/03/2026 - 18:36

Polar Oceans Seminar Talk - Andrew Styles

Away from the continental boundaries, the variability of the global ocean is frequently dominated by eddies. Despite this interior chaos, ocean boundary pressures on opposing sides of a basin can vary coherently on interannual to decadal timescales while exhibiting large-scale spatial structure. As part of the OceanBound project, we use an adjoint model to directly quantify the drivers of variability in Atlantic boundary pressures and the associated basin-wide geostrophic transport. The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) is the overall effect of basin-wide meridional transport in the Atlantic and is a central component of the climate system. We use an adjoint modelling framework to investigate the forcings and relevant timescales behind the interannual variability of the basin-wide geostrophic transport in the subtropical North and South Atlantic. We find that a combination of wind-driven and heat-driven variability, operating on a maximum timescale of 10 years, can explain 79-94% of the variability exhibited by the model. Wind-driven variability is mostly interannual and essential in all cases (64-88% explained variability). The heat-driven variability is largely decadal and only noticeable in the subtropical North Atlantic (48-52% explained variability). We then identify a rogues’ gallery of four spatial patterns of sensitivity that are relevant to our reconstructions.

If you are external to BAS and would like to attend please reach out to the organisers before the talk and arrive at reception 10 minutes before so we can let you in.

Speaker: Speaker to be confirmed
Wednesday 18 March 2026, 14:00-15:00
Venue: BAS Seminar Room 2.
Series: British Antarctic Survey - Polar Oceans seminar series; organiser: Katherine Turner.

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Wed 27 May 14:00: Polar Oceans Seminar Talk

Mon, 09/03/2026 - 13:40

Polar Oceans Seminar Talk

Abstract not available

Speaker: Speaker to be confirmed
Wednesday 27 May 2026, 14:00-15:00
Venue: BAS Seminar Room 1.
Series: British Antarctic Survey - Polar Oceans seminar series; organiser: Katherine Turner.

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Fri 12 Feb 17:30: Welfare Reform and the Imperative of Cooperation

Fri 05 Feb 17:30: Market Failure, Organ Shortage, Pandemic and Climate Change: The Architecture of Cooperation

Fri 29 Jan 17:30: Cooperation in Nature

Fri 22 Jan 17:30: Cooperation as a Laboratory of Being

Thu 19 Mar 11:30: Controls on Capillary Trapping of CO2 in an Anticline

Mon 15 Jun 19:30: CSAR lecture: 46&: Development of a probiotic that supports the natural removal of forever chemicals from the body

Mon 01 Jun 19:30: CSAR lecture: Climate Repair (TBC)

Mon 11 May 19:30: CSAR lecture: Decarbonizing road freight (TBC)

Fri 12 Mar 17:30: Title to be confirmed

Fri 05 Mar 17:30: Title to be confirmed

Fri 19 Feb 17:30: Title to be confirmed

Fri 26 Feb 17:30: Title to be confirmed

Fri 12 Feb 17:30: Title to be confirmed

Fri 05 Feb 17:30: Title to be confirmed

Fri 29 Jan 17:30: Title to be confirmed

Fri 22 Jan 17:30: Title to be confirmed

Thu 12 Mar 15:00: Against the rising tide: polar climate change and comms in the misinformation era

Mon 16 Mar 13:00: Exploring Mechanistic Interactions that Shape the Biological Carbon Pump: Do We Know Enough to Predict Its Future?

Wed 18 Mar 14:00: Polar Oceans Seminar Talk - Andrew Styles If you are external to BAS and would like to attend please reach out to the organisers before the talk and arrive at reception 10 minutes before so we can let you in.

Wed 27 May 14:00: Polar Oceans Seminar Talk

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