A team of scientists and engineers from British Antarctic Survey and the University of Cambridge has successfully drilled over 650 metres in to an Antarctic ice cap to obtain an ice core that will show how the West Antarctic Ice Sheet responds to a warming climate.
A team of scientists and engineers from British Antarctic Survey and the University of Cambridge has successfully drilled over 650 metres in to an Antarctic ice cap to obtain an ice core that will show how the West Antarctic Ice Sheet responds to a warming climate.
The team has been at Skytrain Ice Rise for the last seven weeks. This remote and hostile area bordering the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) is ideally placed to assess whether the WAIS retreated during warm periods in the past. The ice sheet there is just over 600m thick, and chemicals and gases trapped in the ice contain a record of past climate. Because of its location, it is an ideal place to assess how large the neighbouring ice sheet and ice shelf were in the past.
The team is particularly interested in a period known as the last interglacial, around 125,000 years ago. At this time, Antarctica was warmer than today, at temperatures comparable to those expected in the next century, and sea level was higher. The core will show whether the warmth led to loss of part of the WAIS, giving solid evidence to assess what could happen in the future.
Read more at British Antarctic Survey (BAS)
Photo: The drill tent on Skytrain Ice Rise. CREDIT: BAS
