A University of Glasgow-affiliated research centre has embarked upon a project that may help scientists predict the rate of sea level rise more accurately.

The Scottish Universities Environmental Research Centre (SUERC), which is a collaboration between the universities of Glasgow and Edinburgh, will work with other UK universities to try and create models of past climates using information trapped in rocks in the West Antarctic ice sheet.

Researchers will use sensor technology and chemical analysis to determine how long rocks at the ice surface of the ice sheet have been exposed to cosmic radiation – energy from exploding stars in space – during their lifetime.Antarctica 300 

Their findings will indicate whether the ice sheet melted at the warmest point between the two most recent global ice ages, some 120,000 years ago, when sea levels rose by up to six metres. Melting ice would have exposed the rocks to more cosmic radiation than if they had remained embedded in the ice sheet, where they are now.

Understanding whether the ice sheet melted will enable scientists to improve their models of past climates which, in turn, enables more accurate predictions of how sea levels will change as climates continue to warm.

The three-year study will be funded by the Natural Environment Research Council and will be carried out in collaboration with the Universities of Northumbria and Exeter, Scottish Universities Environmental Research Centre, the University of Cologne, and the British Antarctic Survey.

First published: 10 November 2011

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