Source · Select Committees · Environmental Audit Committee
Recommendation 18
18
Accepted
Integrate Antarctic research and preservation into broader international climate strategies.
Conclusion
To safeguard Antarctica’s environment, it is crucial to integrate Antarctic research and preservation into broader international climate strategies. Rising sea levels, driven by climate change in Antarctica, pose an existential risk to the UK, making it imperative to act now to protect both the Antarctic ecosystem and the UK’s coastlines. (Conclusion, Paragraph 107)
Government Response Summary
The government partially accepts this conclusion, highlighting ongoing polar research collaborations like the International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration and British Antarctic Survey's strategic science themes, which aim to understand ice loss and improve sea level models. It also mentions the Marine Climate Change Impacts Partnership (MCCIP) as a means of improving understanding of climate change impacts relevant to UK coastlines.
Government Response
Accepted
HM Government
Accepted
The Government partially accepts this recommendation. 12. The Antarctic environment is changing more rapidly than expected. Over the past few years significant changes have been observed in Antarctica, including the reduction in sea ice extent, loss of ice and extreme heat waves over the continent. These all impact not only on local Antarctic environments but also on global climate systems. 13. Understanding the links between land ice, sea ice, ocean and atmosphere is important to understand the rate and impact of sea level rise on global coastlines. This was the focus of the NERC/National Science Foundation (United States) joint International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration, which resulted in confirmation that warm ocean water is melting the Thwaites ice shelf from below, and threatening the disintegration of the Thwaites glacier, and ultimately the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. 14. This continues to be a major focus for polar research and the UK is currently involved in several major projects to understand the response of the cryosphere to warming climates, including in Antarctica (DEFIANT project on sea-ice and its links to climate and ecosystems), the Arctic (a new ARIA-funded Greenland ice sheet project and its links to European climates) and projects in other regions of Antarctica with other nations (SWAIS2C in the Ross Ice Shelf region). 15. Cryosphere research is one of BAS’s major strategic science themes, which aims to deliver high quality polar research that allows evidence-based decisions on how to mitigate and adapt to threats to coastal societies and key infrastructure. BAS scientists lead international programmes on ice loss, providing fundamental data and knowledge needed to improve sea level models. 16. Through the Marine Climate Change Impacts Partnership (MCCIP) the Government is further improving our understanding of the impact of climate change. MCCIP engages with a wide range of scientific authors to supply policy makers and the public with updates on the current and predicted impacts of climate change. The 2020 MCCIP report “Impacts of climate change on sea-level rise relevant to the coastal and marine environment around the UK” sets out key challenges and emerging issues, such as the need to better quantify and constrain high-end scenarios for sea level rise, including through a better understanding of dynamic ice processes.