Finding the oldest ice on Earth.

The Antarctic ice is a valuable climate archive. Snow has fallen there for thousands of years, gradually condensing into ice and enclosing tiny air bubbles. These air bubbles are time capsules of the Earth's history and contain important information about the composition of the atmosphere and the climate over the past millennia. The European research project Beyond EPICA, in which the AWI is significantly involved, is drilling for the oldest ice on planet Earth in Antarctica. The researchers want to penetrate to a depth of 2,500 meters and recover ice that is up to 1.5 million years old. The analysis of the entire ice core then allows us to completely reconstruct climate history from then to now, which is indispensable for forecasts on climate change.

Image: AWI