A team of European scientists participating in a seven-year research program are now able to study past climate shifts within hours of drilling through Antarctic ice.
EPICA (European Ice Core Project in Antarctica), which aims to uncover the history of the earth's climate, is drawing together scientists from ten European countries: Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK. In the first week of the New Year, the team of European scientists successfully drilled through 2002 meters of ice at Dome Concordia, on the East Antarctica plateau.
The ice at this depth resulted from snowfall 170,000 years ago, when the region was 10șC colder than it is today.
The 22 scientists and drilling experts involved in the project have set up a laboratory and drilling platform on the ice allowing them, for the first time, to analyze past climate shifts within a few hours of drilling each length of core.
Once the drilled cores have been studied on-site, they are sent to over 30 different European laboratories for detailed study.
The EPICA research team focuses on the relationship between the chemistry of the atmosphere and climate shifts, especially the effects of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxides.
The scientists measure impurities in the air bubbles trapped in the ice to investigate the link between climate and greenhouse gases. This information can subsequently be used to test and enhance computer models used to predict future climate patterns.
Next year the team plans to drill to the very bottom of the ice -- the information gathered will allow them to generate a history of climate and atmospheric composition for the last 500,000 years.
Drilling will also begin this month in Dronning Maud Land, one of the least explored regions of Antarctica, 3,000 km from the Dome Concordia site.
The project is being co-ordinated by the European Science Foundation, with funding from the participating countries themselves and from the EU.
30-Jan-2002
