Robert Lloyd - a Sir Gar Blog of random news . . . and some Clecs!

The Director of the Centre for Glaciology at Aberystwyth University , Professor Bryn Hubbard has been awarded the prestigious Polar Medal . The award, announced today Friday 8 January 2016, is made in recognition of Professor Hubbard’s work as a “Polar scholar in glaciology, glacial geology and the structure and motion of ice masses”. Professor Hubbard joins an illustrious list of recipients that includes Captain Robert F Scott, Sir Ernest Shackleton, who accompanied Scott during the 1902-4 expedition, and Sir Edmund Hillary and Sir Vivian Fuchs who led the Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1957-8. Instituted in September 1904 to reward the participants in Captain Robert F Scott’s successful first expedition to the Antarctic region, in recent decades most awards of the Polar Medal have been made to scientists who over prolonged periods of time and in harsh conditions have worked to advance knowledge of the polar regions. Professor Hubbard is one of three glaciologists with...

An Aberystwyth University glaciologist, Professor Michael Hambrey, is to receive a second clasp to his Polar Medal from the Queen for his research on glaciers in Antarctica.  Professor Hambrey, a member of the Centre for Glaciology at the Institute of Geography and Earth Sciences, was first awarded the Medal in 1989 for research in both Polar Regions, and now joins an elite list of recipients who have earned the award a second time. He has taught geology and physical geography at Aberystwyth since 1998. He was instrumental in establishing the Climate Change Consortium of Wales in 2009, becoming its first Director.  He has undertaken extensive field research on the response of glaciers and ice sheets to climate change, not only in the Antarctic and Arctic, but also the Alps, the Himalaya and the Andes. In total he has spent 10 field seasons in Antarctica and around 20 in the Arctic, and has a further trip to Antarctica planned in February. The citation from the UK Hyd...