Significant new funding for critical climate research

The Australian Centre for Excellence in Antarctic Science congratulates all recipients of the latest round of Australian Research Council (ARC) grants through the 2025 Discovery Projects scheme.

“There’s so much to understand about the Antarctic and there’s more urgency than ever,” said Director of ACEAS, Matt King.

“Together these projects will build on the work of ACEAS to advance our understanding of how quickly ice will flow into the ocean and melt, improving projections of coastal sea levels and rapidly changing ocean circulation.”

11 ACEAS-affiliated researchers are involved in projects awarded millions of dollars in competitive funding for critical climate research, including:

Professor Anya Reading (UTAS) (research lead), Dr Tobias Staal (UTAS) and team – almost $1.2 million over four years, for their project: Evolution of Antarctic glaciers from icequake seismology: a new capability.

The project will establish a new way of showing change in the outlet glacier systems of Australia’s Antarctic Territory in East Antarctica, by measuring the sounds of icequakes caused by vibrations of moving and cracking ice, tumbling melt water and ocean waves.

These outlets, from the largest ice sheet on Earth, are subject to rapid change and this work will apply machine learning to listen in to this ‘seismic symphony.’

The project will develop our knowledge of how reduced sea ice is leading to new mechanisms for ice loss. 

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Professor Matt King (UTAS)(research lead), Professor Poul Christoffersen (UTAS)and team – $582,472 over three years for their project: Rapid response of Antarctic ice streams to decadal climate perturbations.

The project seeks to tightly define the uncertain ice-bed physics that will govern the rate of change of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. The rate of sea-level rise in coming decades depends heavily on how quickly the ice sheet changes.

This work is based on recent observations of rapid, climatologically-forced changes in the glacier elevation and focuses on almost-instant responses to the melting of ice shelves downstream. It will allow for better predictions of the speed at which the ice sheet will change, due to ocean-driven melting.

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Professor Rhodri Davies (ANU) (research lead), Professor Joanne Whittaker (IMAS/UTAS)and team – $689,942 over three years for their project: Volcanoes on Ice: Mantle Influence on Antarctic Ice Sheet Evolution.

This project will constrain Antarctic mantle dynamics over the past 40 million years using a data-driven computational approach that integrates its volcanic record with geoscientific observations.

A major outcome will be the first Antarctic-wide reconstructions of topography and heat flow – surface manifestations of mantle convection that control ice-sheet behaviour. These reconstructions will be used to explore why the Antarctic Ice Sheet (AIS) formed and how it has since evolved.

Benefits include a transformational understanding of connections between the Antarctic surface and its deep interior, reducing uncertainties in forecasting the AIS’ response to climate change, and cementing Australia’s leadership in cutting-edge Antarctic science.

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Dr Adele Morrison (ANU) (research lead), Professor Matthew England (UNSW), Dr Madelaine Gamble Rosevear (UniMelb) – $540,000 over for four years for their project: Improving projections of the risk of ocean-driven Antarctic ice melt.

The risk of continued ocean-driven ice loss from Antarctica is profound, with marine terminating ice sheets holding tens of meters of potential global sea level rise. Yet sea level projections are highly uncertain, in part as the numerical models used for making these projections are missing key ocean processes.

This project aims to better constrain future rates of sea level rise from Antarctic ice melt by developing new fundamental understanding of the complex ocean processes that drive melting, and by transforming the representation of ocean–ice shelf interactions in Australia’s next-generation global ocean model. This will benefit future adaptation of Australia’s coastal infrastructure, tourism and natural resource sectors.

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Dr Linda Armbrecht (IMAS/UTAS) (research lead), Dr Alexandra Post (GA) and team – $767,430 over three years for their project: The invisible past: Antarctic ecosystem evolution unlocked by ancient DNA.

This project aims to investigate marine organism responses to ecosystem change around Antarctica by using an innovative approach of sedimentary ancient DNA, evolutionary and population genetics. New knowledge will be generated on rates at which keystone marine organisms (e.g., phytoplankton, Antarctic krill) adapt to environmental change.

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Professor Poul Christoffersen (IMAS/UTAS) (research lead) and team – $623,948 over three years for their project – A novel model to understand ice shelf stability and collapse.

Climate change is undermining the stability of the AIS, which is losing ice mass at a growing pace. But deep uncertainty in sea level projections is compromising effective adaptation and mitigation, not only in Australia but globally. This project will develop an innovative method to predict ice shelf stability, leading to more confidence in climate models and projections, in turn helping Australia manage its coastline amid rising global sea levels.

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Dr Linda Armbrecht (UTAS) is also part of the research team for the University of Adelaide-led project: Climate, fire and Kangaroo Island: resolving the past to manage the future – $751,276 over three years.

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Congratulations to all.