Oldest Unbroken Record of Earth’s Climate Pulled From Antarctic Ice Sheet
A colossal ice core sample drilled in Antarctica may contain the oldest, unbroken timeline of Earth’s climate, stretching back more than a million years.
Laid horizontally, the entire ice core’s 2,800-meter (9,186-foot) length could extend across San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge, and then some.
Each meter-long segment contains up to 13,000 years of deep, compressed history, including bubbles of ancient air. Together, the evidence provides a baseline for our current climate crisis, and it could reveal more about past extreme climate change events that threatened human survival.
“We have a strong indication that the uppermost 2,480 meters contain a climate record that goes back to 1.2 million years,” says Julien Westhoff, chief scientist on the ground for the European Project for Ice Coring in Antarctica (EPICA).
Further analysis needs to be done, but there’s a chance that the deepest parts of the drilling could contain ice that dates back to the pre-Quaternary period, more than 2.5 million years ago.
The oldest ice uncovered in Antarctica so far dates back 2.7 million years, but Earth’s movements pushed this ice into a shallower patch of frozen material, so it doesn’t provide a continuous climate chronicle; it’s more of a snapshot.
Previously, the EPICA record for the oldest vertical ice core covered the last 740,000 years or so, and it was obtained in 2004.
Ice cores are precious to scientists, because they trap particles, water isotopes, and bubbles of atmospheric gases, like carbon dioxide and methane. This allows researchers to reconstruct climates and environments in our planet’s history.
The new drilling from East Antarctica covers a period of time when Earth’s cycles of glaciation inexplicably lengthened, sometime between 900,000 and 1.2 million years ago.
Some scientists suspect nearly 99 percent of early humans in Africa may have died out during this period of extreme cold swings, although that hypothesis remains contentious and is mostly based on modern genetic data.
The fresh ice core from Antarctica could reveal more details about Earth’s climate shifts during this time. It will probably also confirm just how far off track anthropogenic emissions have taken our planet’s natural cycles of glaciation.
“This transition remains a scientific mystery, particularly regarding the role of greenhouse gases and ice sheet dynamics,” Carlo Barbante, director of EPICA, told CNN.
“This data helps us understand the intricate relationship between greenhouse gases and global temperature over hundreds of thousands of years and now down to 1.2 million year(s) and hopefully beyond.”
The extraction site of the recent drilling is called Little Dome C, in East Antarctica, and it was chosen because radar surveys revealed the presence of extremely thick ice here, layered like a cake, with a bottom that had not yet melted away.
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Tom
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Can we trust the scientists and researchers to make an impartial assessment of these cores?
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Aaron
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of course we can cause they so smart
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Jerry Krause
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Hi PSI Readers,
Tom and Aaron question if we can believe the results of this SCIENTIFIC project. Of course we can for this project has no theory involved. It is merely an effort to physically obtain a physical record of PAST HISTORICAL EVENTS. like glaciers. About which there is no question if they are FACT.
Don’t miss, the fact that in this article there ARE NOT the words “BILLIONS OF YEARS”..There is a big difference of magnitude between the numbers BILLION and MILLION..
Have a good day
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Orlandobass
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“Together, the evidence provides a baseline for our current climate crisis …”
“It will probably also confirm just how far off track anthropogenic emissions have taken our planet’s natural cycles of glaciation.”
I didn’t think think PS subscribes to the whole anthropogenic climate change farce. After rereading the article, I saw the director of EPICA was speaking to CNN. ‘Nuff said.
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