Scientists have tapped into an extraordinary archive of Earth’s climate in ice deep beneath Antarctica, shedding light on past, present, and future climate changes. The international team extracted a 1.2 million-year-old time capsule from bedrock 1.7 miles deep, containing ancient records of the continent’s climate history.
Working at Little Dome C Field Base, researchers have spent four summers drilling into the ice column – equivalent to six Empire State buildings – to uncover this natural archive. The project aims to understand how Antarctica transitioned from a warm region to a snowy desert and when it became completely covered in ice.
The team has previously drilled an ice core dating back about 800,000 years, which revealed that greenhouse gas concentrations never exceeded those since the industrial age. This new sample will help improve climate models used to inform energy decisions. By verifying these models against the ancient ice records, scientists can refine their understanding and provide policymakers with more accurate information.
This breakthrough has significant implications for climate research and policy-making, offering a unique opportunity to study the Earth’s history and understand how the climate may change in the future.
Source: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/what-an-ancient-ice-core-from-antarctica-can-tell-us-about-our-climates-past-and-future