SCIENTISTS on Wednesday sealed ancient chunks of glacial ice in a first-of-its-kind sanctuary in Antarctica in the hope of preserving these fast-disappearing records of Earth’s past climate for centuries to come.
The two ice cores taken from Europe’s Alps are the first to be stored in a purpose-built snow cave on the frozen continent that one day should house an invaluable archive from across the globe.
Hosted at Concordia Station at 3,200 metres (10,500 feet) altitude in the heart of Antarctica, the ice sanctuary will protect the collection in natural cold storage at minus 52C without any need for refrigeration. Ice cores shed precious light on climate conditions of millennia past, and these samples could help scientists of the future unlock their mysteries long after the glaciers themselves have melted away.
“To safeguard what would be otherwise irreversibly lost… is an endeavour for humanity,” said Thomas Stocker, a Swiss climate scientist and chair of the Ice Memory Foundation, which spearheaded the initiative. The ambitious project was nearly a decade in the making, and posed not just logistical but unprecedented diplomatic challenges.
AFP
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