International climate research partnership between Newcastle and Stockholm

30 March 2026 | By: Professor Neil Ross | 2 min read

A partially submerged glacier set against a blue sky.

Our academics in the School of Geography, Politics, and Sociology are collaborating with Swedish experts to learn more about ice sheet changes and the behaviour of Arctic glaciers.

For the past two years, a partnership has developed between academic glaciologists in both Newcastle University and Stockholm University. Professor Neil Ross, Professor of Polar Science and Environmental Geophysics, discusses the impact of this collaboration and how it benefits our understanding of glaciers.

The importance of Newcastle University’s expertise in glaciology

Observing, measuring, and monitoring glaciers and ice sheets is essential in a warming climate. What we learn from these studies helps us to understand and project potential impacts on local communities, mountain and polar infrastructure, and global sea level.

Newcastle University has strong expertise in glaciology, especially glacier geophysics, using methods such as radio-echo sounding (RES). Using radio waves, which are transmitted very effectively through ice to the land surface underneath, and then reflected back to the ice surface above, RES enables measurement of the thickness of glaciers and ice sheets. By making multiple measurements in a grid backwards and forwards across a glacier, it is possible to calculate 3D glacier volume, as well as to characterise whether the ice within a glacier is melting or deeply frozen. Researchers at Newcastle have acquired RES measurement of ice thickness across the world, including in Antarctica and Greenland, using these measurements to better understand and quantify the past, present and future impacts of climate change on glaciers and ice sheets.

It was this expertise – and our in-depth knowledge and experience with RES technology and remote polar fieldwork – that led to a collaboration with researchers at Stockholm University.

Making academic connections with Stockholm University

The relationship began in Autumn 2023 when Nina Kirchner, Professor of Glaciology at Stockholm University, contacted us for support and training on newly purchased RES equipment for glacier surveys near Tarfala Research Station in Arctic Sweden, and across northern parts of the Greenland Ice Sheet.

Following an online planning call with field-safety expert Anders Bergwall (Arctic Guides), the team agreed to collaborative glacier geophysics fieldwork in Arctic Sweden in Spring 2024. Funding and in-kind support came from Tarfala Research Station, the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences (at Newcastle University) Global Fund, as well as the School of Geography, Politics and Sociology.

A short but productive field campaign on Laevas Sami lands in northern Sweden produced high quality RES measurements of Storglaciären, delivered equipment training and established workflows for further collection of data from other Swedish glaciers, and data processing. The visit also informed planning for the summer 2024 Stockholm University marine cruise (GEOEO24) to North Greenland, where helicopter-borne RES was collected over Hans Ostenfeld and other glaciers. Using existing NASA Operation IceBridge RES data, Professors Ross and Kirchner were able to refine survey design for GEOEO24.

'I experienced our collaboration as one of the few that I, without hesitation, would award all gold stars available if asked to rate it. Therefore, I am really looking forward to its continuation, and plans to advance it scientifically are exciting and many!' Professor Nina Kirchner, Professor of Glaciology at Stockholm University

Next steps

Following the Sweden field campaign, the collaboration has continued remotely and in the field. Newcastle has provided ongoing support for RES surveys, with the team completing helicopter RES acquisition in north Greenland, and Tarfala-funded postdoctoral researcher Dr Zhuo Wang joining the project. Multiple collaborative papers have now been submitted to scientific journals, such as Earth System Science Data. RES data and 3D data products have now been made openly available via the Stockholm University Bolin Centre for Climate Research Data Centre. Kirchner and Ross have given invited talks at each other’s institutions, with Ross presenting early results from the Storglaciären fieldwork at the Tarfala 80th Anniversary Workshop in Stockholm.

This emerging Newcastle–Stockholm partnership demonstrates how modest seed funding can catalyse international research, training and knowledge exchange leading to sustained, high impact science. The partners are continuing and expanding the collaboration, building on the momentum from the 2024 fieldwork and follow-up research.