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Against the rising tide: polar climate change and comms in the misinformation era

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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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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Bidders have lined up to take over pieces of the National Center for Atmospheric Research

Jared Isaacman says agency may accelerate lunar science program and could tackle a new Mars mission in 2028

ARPA-H will “build the train tracks” for first large clinical studies of aging interventions

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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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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Polar Oceans Seminar Talk

Abstract not available

• Speaker: Speaker to be confirmed
• Wednesday 13 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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See Below

Bubble plumes in electrolysis

Haihan Li, IEEF

Dissolution of capillary trapped co2 plumes

Ruiyang Wang, IEEF

• Speaker: Hainhan Li, IEEF and Ruiyang Wang, IEEF
• Thursday 12 March 2026, 11:30-12:30
• Venue: Open Plan Area, Institute for Energy and Environmental Flows, Madingley Rise CB3 0EZ.
• Series: Institute for Energy and Environmental Flows (IEEF); organiser: Catherine Pearson.

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Against the rising tide: polar climate change and comms in the misinformation era

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, 16:00-17:00
• Venue: Scott Polar Research Institute.
• Series: Scott Polar Research Institute - Polar Physical Sciences Seminar; organiser: meh91.

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Ongoing Regime Shifts in Arctic and Subarctic Peatlands: A Palaeoecological Perspective

Peatlands, which cover only 3% of the Earth’s land area, are critical carbon sinks, storing nearly one-third of global soil carbon – more than the total carbon stock of all forests combined. However, many high latitude peatlands are currently experiencing regime shifts characterised by changes in hydrology, nutrients, and plant communities. These shifts have profound implications for peatland vegetation, carbon dynamics, and climate regulation.

Palaeoecological data, including plant submacrofossils and testate amoebae, provide valuable insights into the historical dynamics of peatlands. Our recent research in Arctic and Subarctic regions has documented the formation of new organic soils and notable shifts in peatland vegetation, particularly an increase in Sphagnum mosses (peat moss). Sphagnum mosses are highly resistant to decay and play a key role in carbon sequestration. This prompts us to explore the broader implications of these changes for future peatland carbon storage potential.

• Speaker: Sanna Piilo - University of Helsinki
• Thursday 19 March 2026, 16:00-17:00
• Venue: Scott Polar Research Institute, main lecture theatre.
• Series: Scott Polar Research Institute - Polar Physical Sciences Seminar; organiser: meh91.

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Inspired by the loss of their mother, they have poured millions into studying a key protein behind frontotemporal dementia. But all has not gone according to plan

Strategy gains momentum after promising results in cell studies and infected people

Immune systems in animals, plants, and bacteria often rely on intracellular nucleotide signaling, which viruses can block by sequestering or degrading these signals. We identified structural and biophysical traits shared by diverse viral antidefense ...

Wildfires, insect outbreaks, and storms cause large pulses of tree mortality. Climate change amplifies these forest disturbances, yet their future magnitude and extent remain uncertain. Here, we simulated future forest disturbance regimes at 100-meter ...

Self-amplifying RNA (saRNA) enables sustained protein expression from a single administration. In this study, we developed an intramuscular saRNA-lipid nanoparticle (saNppa-LNP) therapy encoding natriuretic peptide type A (Nppa) for cardioprotection. A ...

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the leading cause of dementia and is characterized by progressive amyloid accumulation followed by tau-mediated neurodegeneration. Despite advances in anti-amyloid immunotherapies, important limitations remain, highlighting ...

Mitigating climate change requires broad societal buy-in. Integrated assessment models (IAMs) produce cost-optimal pathways, but these are complex and not easily customized to reflect individuals’ preferences. Twenty years ago, the stabilization wedge ...

Over the past decade, an increasing number of Global Majority countries—broadly characterized as economically developing countries in Africa, the Caribbean, Asia, Latin America, the Middle East, and Oceania—have introduced national artificial intelligence (AI) strategies. However, many of these frameworks overlook a critical dimension of AI governance: the strategic importance of critical minerals. As geopolitical tensions intensify around access to computing infrastructure, Global Majority countries must recognize that their mineral reserves represent leverage points for transforming their respective positions in the global AI value chain.

Population bottlenecks can lead to evolutionary dead ends by eroding genetic diversity and intensifying inbreeding. Although theory predicts possible escape routes, direct observations of this process are rare. Using whole-genome data from 418 koalas, we ...