The achievement represents the longest continuous record of Earth’s climate from an ice core.
Humans have been recording the weather for thousands of years. Antarctic ice, however, has been at it for over a million.
It’s worth clarifying that this record doesn’t make it the oldest ice core ever extracted—that recognition goes to arecovered in 2017. What makes the Beyond EPICA core special is its continuous, high-resolution climate record spanning 1.2 million years, offering crucial insights into ancient atmospheric conditions and glacial cycles.“We have marked a historic moment for climate and environmental science,” said Carlo Barbante of Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, coordinator of Beyond EPICA.
Led by The Institute of Polar Sciences of the National Research Council of Italy , the scientists worked for more than 200 days, drilling into the ice and processing the ice core at a remote site in East Antarctica called Little Dome C, with a balmy average summer temperature of -31 degrees Fahrenheit .
The deepest and oldest parts of the core, which were closest to the bedrock, are made of ancient ice “that is heavily deformed, possibly mixed or refrozen and of unknown origin,” as well as rocks from the bedrock itself. This section could further scientists’ understanding of refrozen ice under the Antarctic ice sheet, the glaciation history of this Antarctic region, and the last time the continent was ice-free.
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