![]() The last time an Australian team went this far inland was 1962, but they had air support. Pedro says ice that old will help to refine climate models and the calculations on how sensitive the planet’s temperature is to carbon dioxide.īut the journey to the site has been epic and pioneering in itself, says Pedro. One mystery the ancient ice could solve is what drove changes in the ice age cycles. Impurities like dust and salt in the ice can reveal how stormy conditions were, and elements like krypton, xenon and neon can help reveal ocean temperatures. “The Antarctic ice sheet is also the cleanest air in the world so it’s the perfect place to do it.”įrom the air samples, scientists will be able to see the composition of the atmosphere and the temperatures at the time the snow was falling. “It’s like a perfect little vial of air,” says Pedro. If we stayed any longer, it gets to minus 50,” says Labudda, gazing out the window of the snow groomer across a flat, white, magnificent landscape.īut the air trapped in the ice cores are not proxies, but an actual sample of air – including the levels of CO2 – trapped and preserved for millennia. ![]() Next week the temperatures will get to minus 40. In less than two weeks, the team will journey back to Australia’s Casey station before temperatures drop further. ![]() But there’s been little downtime.Īlready, the team have been out using hand-coring tools to extract four short and shallow ice cores to examine the chemistry of the ice. The team – part of Australia’s Million Year Ice Core project – had special dispensation to have champagne, washed down with some eye fillet, as a celebration. I’ll never forget everyone’s smiles when we did.” “We were prepared to get close but not make it. “I still can’t believe it,” says Labudda, an engineer who has worked in Antarctica every year – except one – since the summer of 2002-03. What was the reaction when the team arrived? Photograph: Sharon Labudda AADĪlmost no life was seen on the trip, aside from one or two snow petrels and a gull-like skua “that came right up and looked into the cabin”. The team travels to their destination, with two snow groomers clearing a path for five tractors and sleds carrying equipment.
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