Unassuming, icicle-like tubes could help answer mysteries about Earth’s climate.
They are the world’s oldest ice cores, which have just landed in the UK after being drilled from the depths of Antarctica.
While most of Britain is reeling from weeks of back-to-back heatwaves, scientists in Cambridge find out what the rare blocks of ice can reveal about climate change and our home planet.
But to get hold of the ice, they first had to drill for 1.7 miles down the ice sheet at the South Pole.
The giant stick of ice was then cut into more manageable chunks and transported to Europe.
Scientists hope the pieces will reveal why the planet’s climate cycle shifted more than a million years ago, helping to predict Earth’s future response to rising greenhouse gas.
Dr Liz Thomas, from the British Antarctic Survey in Cambridge, told Reuters: ‘We really are exploring a completely unknown time in our history.
‘We are hoping to unlock all these amazing secrets.’
The new core ice, which was drilled near the Concordia research station in the ‘White Continent,’ beats the previous 800,000-year-old ice, which was drilled in the early 2000s.
Until now, scientists have relied on marine sediments to study the climate cycles. over millions of years.
But ice has a special feature invisible to the naked eye – entrapped bubbles showing the atmospheric conditions, amount of greenhouse gas in the air and chemical evidence of temperatures at the time when they were released.
And to not make the job too easy for the scientists, Antarctica is the only place on Earth where such a long record of the atmosphere is found.
Summer temperatures at the French-Italian Concordia station range from -30°C to -50°C, and can reach a brain-numbing -80°C in winter.
Dr Thomas continued: ‘Our data will yield the first continuous reconstructions of key environmental indicators—including atmospheric temperatures, wind patterns, sea ice extent, and marine productivity—spanning the past 1.5 million years.
‘This unprecedented ice core dataset will provide vital insights into the link between atmospheric CO₂ levels and climate during a previously uncharted period in Earth’s history, offering valuable context for predicting future climate change.’
Other Antarctica mysteries
The world’s largest ice sheet remains shrouded in mystery and intrigue as relatively little is still known about Antarctica.
Geologists believe the continent was once covered in rivers and forests.
Satellite data and radars revealed ridges and valleys, suggesting the icy no man’s land looked very different 34 million years ago.
Meanwhile, conspiracy theorists have their eyes set on Antarctica after Google Map sleuths believe they have found a secret door buried in the mountainside.
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