‘A completely unknown period of our Earth’s history’

Scientists at the British Antarctic Survey in Cambridge, England, are studying ice cores that may be older than 1.5 million years in hopes that they can reveal clues about our changing climate and what we can do to protect our future, according to BBC News.

“This is a completely unknown period of our Earth’s history,” said Liz Thomas, head of ice core research at the British Antarctic Survey.

The ice cores are being studied in a room that is kept at minus 23 degrees Celsius, so researchers have to wear protective equipment and can stay in the room for a maximum of 15 minutes at a time.

The ice cores were drilled from deep inside the Antarctic ice sheet. They are so clear that the researchers can see right through them.

Researchers will slowly melt the ice over the course of seven weeks, releasing ancient dust, volcanic ash, and diatoms, which are tiny marine algae. These sediments became locked inside when the water turned to ice. They can reveal information about wind patterns, temperatures, and sea levels from over a million years ago.

The facility in Cambridge is one of the only places in the world equipped to conduct this kind of research, but multiple nations are involved in the research process and cost since it is so important to the future of our planet. The effort to extract the ice cores cost millions of dollars.

The research teams have already found evidence that carbon dioxide concentrations over 800,000 years ago may have been naturally as high or higher than current levels, which could help them make predictions about what might happen to our planet in the future.

The article explains that the difference between the warming of the planet that happened previously and the rapid rise in planet-warming gases over the past 150 years is that human actions have contributed significantly to the process in recent times.

Scientists are hopeful that the environmental history from the ice –– and, specifically, from the time period between 800,000 years and 1.2 million years ago when glacial cycles suddenly changed –– can give us guidance on how to proceed.

Thomas stated that “our climate system has been through so many different changes that we really need to be able to go back in time to understand these different processes and different tipping points.”

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