SURFEIT aims to grow a new international community that works collaboratively on how changes in Antarctic surface ice and snow processes will impact global sea-level rise in the following decades. 

We also seek to achieve several key scientific objectives:

• To include in the models used to forecast ice loss and sea level rise some vital but currently overlooked ways that tiny particles released from sea ice can influence cloud formation, and so snowfall.

• To develop improved projections of how liquid water can seep into ice sheets and so encourage their break-up. This process could drive the bulk of Antarctic ice loss after 2100 so it’s important it can be reliably simulated and forecast.

• To refine the findings from large scale computer models so that the results can be applied to smaller and more precise geographical regions. This would then allow, for example, the impact of unusually high temperatures on a vulnerable section of ice sheet to be assessed.

• To better link the way computer models simulate interactions between the atmosphere and the sea ice. This will give better long-term predictions of how and when Antarctic ice will fracture and contribute to global sea level rise.