Produced by: Manoj Kumar
Embedded within the Antarctic ice, a 1.2-million-year-old record of Earth’s climate history has been uncovered, offering a rare glimpse into glacial transformations.
At 2,800 meters beneath Little Dome C, scientists extracted the ancient ice core, marking one of the longest and most detailed climate archives.
The ice core captures Earth’s transition from 41,000-year glacial cycles to the longer 100,000-year cycles, solving a major mystery in climate science.
Using advanced radio echo sounding and ice flow modeling, researchers accurately predicted and retrieved the core from precise depths.
The team endured -35°C temperatures at 3,200 meters altitude for over 200 days, showcasing resilience in the harsh Antarctic environment.
Preserving the ice core’s integrity at -50°C during its journey aboard the icebreaker Laura Bassi highlights the logistical complexity of the project.
Each meter of the core compresses up to 13,000 years of data, preserving snapshots of greenhouse gas levels, solar activity, and volcanic events.
The ice core’s findings refine climate models and deepen understanding of natural and human-induced global warming’s impacts on Earth’s systems.
A global team of experts from institutions like ENEA and Göttingen University worked to uncover and preserve this invaluable climatic artifact.
Beyond EPICA exemplifies the ingenuity and determination of polar scientists, pushing the boundaries of what is possible in Earth’s most hostile environments.