1.3-million-year-old ice to help fight climate change?

Cambridge scientists have begun working this month on Antarctica ice thought to be around 1.2 million years old to try and predict future climate change.

For the next seven weeks they will melt the one metre blocks to release air and other particles formed hundreds of thousands of years ago, which scientists hope could provide important information about our planet’s past.

Suspended within the ice are air bubbles which each act like a tiny time capsule of the Earth’s atmosphere when the ice was formed.

Researchers hope the ancient dust, volcanic ash and tiny marine algae will help them understand better what wind patterns, temperatures and sea levels were, all those years ago and the different changes our climate system has been through.

“It never ceases to amaze me,” said Midlands green energy Ron Fox, “how experts can use details from an unknown period of our Earth’s history to help solve our problems today.”

The ice was extracted from depths of up to 2,800 metres in East Antarctica, as part of the Beyond EPICA – Oldest Ice project, over four summers by an international team of scientists, led by the Italian Institute of Polar Sciences and included 10 European nations and 12 institutions. It was funded by the European Commission.

Working at temperatures of -35C, the team drilled a 1.7-mile-long piece of ice from deep within Antarctica, the equivalent to just over the length of 26-and-a-half professional football pitches.

It was then stored inside frozen caves, before being cut into one metre blocks and then carefully transported at temperatures of -50C, firstly by boat from Antarctica and then by road to various scientific laboratories, including the UK, Germany and Switzerland.

The 2.8km-long cylindrical tubes of ancient ice will be analysed at the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) in Cambridge and in other European research centres, with the ultimate goal of reconstructing up to 1.5 million years of Earth’s climate history, significantly extending the current record of 800,000 years.

The scientists want to find out why did the planet’s climate shifted roughly one million years ago from a 41,000-year to a 100,000-year glacial cycle?

The ice could contain clues about a period between 900,000 and 1.2 million years ago, known as the Mid-Pleistocene Transition when our ancestors may have been pushed to the brink of extinction by a period of extreme cooling in the world.

Researchers hope the data will provide vital insights into the link between atmospheric CO₂ levels and climate change during a previously uncharted period in Earth’s history. This in turn will help predict how the world’s climate may respond to future greenhouse gas increases.

“I wish these scientists all the best as their work could literally be life-changing,” said of Noreus Ltd on the University of Keele Science and Innovation Park.

For those wanting more advice about climate change and how it affects them, call Ron on 0845 474 6641 or contact us here.

Caption: Ice one! How Antarctic research into the past may help defeat climate change today.