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A team of scientists has drilled one of the oldest ice cores to date, penetrating nearly two miles into Antarctic bedrock to reach ice that is at least 1.2 million years old.
The same team had previously drilled a core about 800 thousand years old.
Analysis of ancient ice is expected to show how Earth’s atmosphere and climate evolved. They said it should provide insight into how ice age cycles changed, and may help understand how climate change changes carbon in the atmosphere.
“Thanks to the ice core, we will understand what has changed in terms of greenhouse gases, chemicals and dust in the atmosphere,” said Carlo Barbanti, an Italian glaciologist and coordinator of Beyond EPICA, a project to obtain ice cores.
The latest drilling was conducted to a depth of 2.8 kilometers (about 1.7 miles), with a team of 16 scientists and support personnel drilling every summer over four years at average temperatures of about minus 35 degrees Celsius (minus 25.6 degrees Fahrenheit).
Italian researcher Federico Scotto was among the glaciologists and technicians who completed drilling at the beginning of January at a site called Little Dome C, near the Concordia Research Station.
“It was a great moment for us when we got to the foundation,” Scotto said. Isotope analysis gave the age of the ice at least 1.2 million years, he said.
Barbanti and Scotto said that thanks to ice core analysis of the previous Epica campaign, they estimated that concentrations of greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide and methane, even during the warmest periods of the past 800,000 years, never exceeded the maximum permissible limit. Levels we have seen since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution.
“Today we are seeing carbon dioxide levels 50% higher than the highest levels we have seen in the past 800,000 years,” Barbanti said.
Beyond EPICA (European Ice Drilling Project in Antarctica) has been funded by the European Union with support from countries across the continent. Italy is coordinating the project.
The announcement was exciting for Richard Alley, a climate scientist at Penn State who recently received the National Medal of Science for his career studying ice sheets.
Alley said progress in studying ice cores is important because it helps scientists better understand past climate conditions and helps them understand humans’ contributions to climate change today.
“This is really, really, amazingly cool,” Allie said. “They will learn wonderful things.”