The scope of what’s possible is perhaps best illustrated by what BAS is doing right now in the Arctic. The GIANT (Greenland Ice sheet to AtlaNtic Tipping points) project is in the process of deploying an extraordinary array of vehicles to investigate how exactly Greenland’s fjord glaciers melt when they encounter warm ocean water. Nine different systems are working together on the problem, including the famous chubby yellow submersible known as Boaty McBoatface.

One of the more unusual GIANT vehicles is called Meltstake. It can take measurements in a location no human scientist would dare put themselves – right up against the vertical cliff face of a crumbling glacier. Who wants to risk thousands of tonnes of ice falling on their head?

Meltstake is essentially an automated drilling platform festooned with sensors. It’s delivered to the front of the glacier by a self-driving boat. That’s the easy part. The Meltstake still has to get to the real point of interest… 100m to 200m below the waterline. So, it piggybacks to depth on a remotely operated diving vehicle.

On arrival, the Meltstake then screws itself into the wall, and continues screwing as the ice face melts to keep up with its retreat. Included in the sensor package are cameras, hydrophones to “listen” to the ice, and acoustic scanners to map the ocean currents – the energy that shapes the evolving glacier face.