Scientists have extracted the world’s oldest ice sample from Antarctica, aiming to solve the mystery of Earth’s climate history and better predict future climate change. The 2.8km-long cylinder of ice core contains ancient air bubbles that will provide unprecedented information on atmospheric temperatures and greenhouse gas concentrations over the past 1.2 million years.
The Beyond EPICA project, led by Switzerland’s University of Bern, has extracted the massive ice core at Little Dome C, a remote site in Antarctica. The team worked for four years to reach a record depth of 2,800 meters, where the Antarctic ice sheet meets the rock below. This will provide an unparalleled record of Earth’s climate history, including information on the Mid-Pleistocene Transition, which occurred between 900,000 and 1.2 million years ago.
The extracted ice core is expected to reveal the link between the carbon cycle and the temperature of our planet, shedding light on the complex mechanisms that drive climate change. The researchers hope that this data will enable improvements to climate models and future projections, helping scientists better understand how the Earth system responds to changes in greenhouse gases.
The ice sample will be analyzed by laboratories in Germany, Switzerland, Italy, France, and Great Britain, using an innovative laser beam technique developed by the University of Bern. This technique allows for precise measurements of greenhouse gases without contaminating the samples or melting the ice. The results are expected to have far-reaching implications for climate science and will provide valuable insights into the Earth’s climate history.
Source: https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/climate-change/predicting-the-climate-of-the-future-with-the-oldest-ice-on-earth/88702396