CAMBRIDGE: What began as a top secret World War Two spying mission and evolved into a respected pool of polar explorers and scientists, is now aiming to build its role as a world centre of expertize on climate change.

The British Antarctic Survey, which started as Operation Tabarin in 1943 and became the Falklands Islands Dependencies Survey (FIDS) before turning into its current incarnation in 1962, cherishes its pioneering past but embraces the future.

“Antarctica had isolated itself from the mainstream. Antarctic scientists talked to each other but no one else listened,” BAS chief Chris Rapley said.

In a remarkable twist of fate, the Argentine invasion of South Georgia and the Falkland or Malvinas Islands in 1982 provided the kind of financial boost the government-funded survey badly needed.

“Our budget doubled overnight,” said BAS deputy director John Dudeney. “Before the Falkland’s War we were thinking of closing down one of our bases for lack of funds.”

Initial post-war recruits to the FIDS tended to be explorers with a scientific speciality. Today’s are scientists with a zest for adventure in the world’s coldest and loneliest continent.

“The science is paramount, although the adventure may be the initial hook,” said BAS spokeswoman Linda Capper. “It is one of the most extreme working environments in the world.”

Biologists, physicists, meteorologists, chemists, engineers, glaciologists, zoologists and oceanographers meld their talents with radar experts, seismologists, pilots, photographers, drillers and sailors in the frozen melting pot of Antarctica.

All are special but all are equal.

“Everyone does everything down there. Even the base director has to do the dishes,” Capper said.

The environment can be picture postcard perfect but, like the sea, utterly merciless with the ultimate sanction for carelessness or simple misfortune being death.

BRITISH PHLEGMATIAM RULES: In the 1940s and 50s with scant radio, air and sea connections to the outside and technology that was only just starting to bloom from the days of Scott and Shackleton, self-sufficiency was the order of the day — every day.