Royal Society of Tasmania medal for sea-ice researcher

20 June 2025

A Hobart-based physical oceanographer has received a prestigious award for his outstanding research on sea-ice changes around Antarctica.

Dr Edward Doddridge is a physical oceanographer with the Australian Antarctic Program Partnership in the Institute for Antarctic and Marine Studies at the University of Tasmania. On 18 June 2025, he was awarded the Dr Peter Smith Medal by the Royal Society of Tasmania, at Government House in Hobart.

This is his acceptance speech:

“It is a real honour to receive the Dr Peter Smith Medal today. This medal has a special significance to me because I knew Dr Smith when I was an undergraduate student. Dr Smith sponsored a scholarship, and I was one of the fortunate recipients. 

Dr Smith was more than just a generous benefactor, he took a genuine interest in my welfare and my progress. Even after I finished we would meet and he’d proudly tell me about the accomplishments of his current students. 

Any success relies on support and mentors, and I would like to also thank Professor Nathan Bindoff. Despite the many demands that come from being a senior academic, he always makes time. And I wouldn’t be here tonight if he hadn’t made the time to write the nomination. Thank you Nathan.” 

“This summer the Australian icebreaker, RSV Nuyina, spent 10 weeks at sea on its first dedicated marine science voyage. They set out towards the Denman Glacier region on the Antarctic coast. Even modern icebreakers aren’t able to push their way through the thickest areas of sea ice, so the voyage plan included many levels of contingencies. In the end though, they needn’t have worried; when they arrived at the ice shelf, there was no sea ice. Scientifically this was a boon; they were able to take samples and measurements in locations that had never been visited before. It also led to some incredible photos of the Nuyina next to towering ice cliffs. 

It is however a stark contrast with a voyage that happened just over one hundred years ago. In 1897 the RV Belgica set sail from Belgium. They eventually made it to the Antarctic sea ice, and in March of 1898 they became trapped. They were stuck in the ice for 13 months, finally breaking free after they used explosives to blast a channel through the sea ice. If the RV Belgica had visited Antarctica in March this year, or last year, or the year before, rather than being trapped in the sea ice, they probably wouldn’t have even seen any. 

These two voyages give us a glimpse of the scale of change unfolding in the Antarctic. Even though these changes are happening thousands of kilometres away, they will affect us all. The ice sheet that sits on Antarctica holds enough water to raise the global sea level by almost 60 metres. 

Australia has more than 200 billion dollars’ worth of infrastructure within 1 metre of the current sea level. The stakes are high. 

Recent work has suggested that part of the Antarctic ice sheet has already passed the point of no return and that we have locked in metres of sea level rise for future generations to contend with. 

The combination of ocean, sea ice, and ice sheets leads to many complex interactions, and Ellie Ong, a student of mine, recently showed that meltwater from the Antarctic ice sheet will dramatically alter a current that surrounds Antarctica and helps shield the ice sheet from warmer ocean waters. 

The meltwater also affects the global overturning circulation that transports heat, salt, carbon, and nutrients around the world. Computer projections suggest that the Antarctic portion of this current will slow by 50% in the coming decades, while observations suggest that this change is already underway. 

This is the complex tapestry within which my work fits. My team and I use computer simulations, mathematical theory, and observational data to untangle how changing winds and ice sheet melt affect ocean currents, the impact of ocean warming on sea ice, and the impact of sea ice changes on the climate and ecosystems of the Antarctic. The answers we find are often confronting. 

A paper of mine coming out next month shows that a loss of summer sea ice increases the number of icebergs that break away from Antarctica each year, causes ocean warming, which persists for multiple years, and has deleterious impacts on a range of species such as krill and emperor penguins. 

In a world undergoing such rapid change, it can feel hopeless, but the evidence is clear; every bit of warming that we avoid helps make the future better. Even if we can’t stop parts of the Antarctic ice sheet from melting, we can slow it down, buying ourselves time to fortify the places we can save and to retreat from the places we can’t.”