The annual four-day event, which is held at the Royal Society – the UK national academy of science – in central London, will feature 25 interactive exhibits presenting the best of UK science, engineering and technology.

The Swansea group's exhibit will focus on how aerial photographs, satellites, lasers and other high-tech gadgets help scientists to better understand climate change and measure the changing Greenland Ice Sheet.

The flow of glaciers discharging from Greenland's Ice Sheet has recently increased dramatically, in some cases doubling in speed. This could cause ice sheet thinning, and faster sea level rise.

The Swansea exhibit will specifically focus on the work of the GLIMPSE (Greenland Ice Margin Prediction, Stability and Evolution) project – a nine-strong team of international researchers, led by Polar Medal awardee Professor Tavi Murray of Swansea University.

The five-year project to research the future stability of the Greenland Ice Sheet is supported by £850,000 funding from the Leverhulme Trust.  

And the team is also working with the Natural Environment Research Council's (NERC's) Airborne Research and Survey Facility to obtain the aerial laser scans (lidar) of the ice sheet.

The project's key outcome will be better predictions of the future of the ice sheet, and therefore the rate of future sea level rise.

Geography PhD students Peter Abbott, Benedict Reinardy, Nick Selmes, Damien Mansell and Helena Sykes will also be on hand on the Swansea stand, to demonstrate some of the equipment used in collecting data to support the group's research.

GLIMPSE project manager, Dr Timothy James, from the School of Environment and Society and who works with the University's Institute for Advance Telecommunications, said: "Our project was chosen from 90 applications from around the UK to be one of only 25 exhibits on display this year.  

"As the most significant and prestigious public event in the Royal Society's calendar, the selection process was highly competitive and our team is really excited to be taking part.

"The future of the Greenland Ice Sheet is one of the most important questions facing humankind.  Everyone has an opinion and it’s great to be able to put scientists and members of the public in the same arena to talk about it."

Nick Selmes, a GLIMPSE PhD student, who recently visited the Arctic to undertake an intensive field course, adds: "Outreach activities like the Summer Science Exhibition are an important part of modern research and it's great that postgraduate students in Swansea have the chance to be involved in an event of this scale."

The 2008 Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition will take place until Thursday, July 3.  For more information click here.

For more information on the GLIMPSE project at Swansea University click here.