Liz Thomas

Liz is a palaeoclimatologist, who travels to the coldest and most remote parts of our planet to understand how our climate is changing. She is head of the ice core research group at the British Antarctica Survey, and has led several expeditions to Antarctica, the Arctic, and even to the most remote island in the world (Bouvet Island, South Atlantic). Liz’s research has captured the unmistakable imprint of human activity on the pristine Antarctic wilderness, including evidence of fly-ash particles (from distant power stations) and nuclear fallout (from 1960s bomb-testing). She recently returned from drilling ice cores through the Brunt Ice Shelf in Antarctica, to better understand the processes driving ice shelf collapse and the potential impact on sea level rise. Her next venture is leading a drilling expedition to the Antarctic Peninsula to study the role of the Southern Ocean in controlling the uptake and release of past atmospheric CO₂.