Antarctic Ice Core Reveals 1.2 Million Years of Unbroken Climate History, Setting New Record

People have been recording the weather for thousands of years. However, the Antarctic ice sheet has existed for over a million years.

An international team of scientists has released 2.8 kilometers of ice in Antarctica, reaching the continent’s ice sheets. The center represents a record of Earth’s climate and space, with the oldest ice sheets dating back 1.2 million years, if not longer. The victory, announced in a words and the “Beyond EPICA – Oldest Ice” project, is expected to provide insight into the perennial question of climate science.

It is worth explaining that this history does not make it the oldest ice core ever removed – recognition goes to The beginning of the 2.7 million year ice age recovered in 2017. What makes the Beyond EPICA core unique is its continuous, stable climate record spanning 1.2 million years, which provides valuable information on past atmospheric conditions and water currents.

“We have a long history in climate and environmental science,” said Carlo Barbante of Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, coordinator of Beyond EPICA. The core was found during the project’s fourth Antarctic campaign. “This is the longest continuous record of our past climate from the ice, and it can reveal the connection between the atmospheric circulation and the temperature of our planet.”

Between 900,000 and 1.2 million years ago, the ice age changed from 41,000 years to 100,000 years – a change known as the Mid-Pleistocene Transition. The Beyond EPICA project aims to better understand these ancient climates.

Led by the Institute of Polar Sciences of the National Research Council of Italy (ISP-CNR), the scientists worked for more than 200 days, drilling into the ice and processing the ice at a remote location in East Antarctica called Little Dome C. with mid-summer temperatures and -31 degrees Celsius (-35 degrees Celsius).

“From the first analysis recorded at Little Dome C, we have a strong indication that the 2,480 meters (1.54 miles) highest has a climate history that started 1.2 million years ago in a very good history that up to 13,000 years is covered in one. meters of ice,” said Julien Westhoff, a postdoc at the University of Copenhagen and lead scientist in the field of the EPICA project.

The deepest and oldest parts of the core, which were closest to the rock, are made up of ancient ice that is “very deformed, either fused or frozen and not well defined,” as well as rocks from the rock. This phase could improve scientists’ understanding of the re-frozen ice beneath the Antarctic ice sheet, the history of the ice retreat of this Antarctic region, and the last time the continent was free of ice.

The project still faces major hurdles, particularly the problem of transferring the frozen sections to the lab without thawing.

Gianluca Bianchi Fasani, head of the Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy, and Sustainable Economic Development’s (ENEA) Logistics for Beyond EPICA. “To achieve this goal, a strategy has been developed to combine the development of special cooling equipment and the precision engineering of the space and naval assets of the National Antarctic Research Program (PNRA).”

Once the ice cores find their way to the (cold) laboratory, it remains to be seen what secrets researchers will uncover within the ancient climate record.