Dr Eric Wolff, from British Antarctic Survey says:
“It’s very exciting to see ice that fell as snow three-quarters of a million years ago. These results tell us that we won’t have an ice age any time soon. However, we may have a heat wave if we are unable to control CO2 emissions and other greenhouse gases entering the atmosphere. Our next step is to investigate CO2 in the ice cores and by understanding what has driven the natural changes seen in the ice record, we will create better models to predict how climate might change in the future.”
The next step in the research is to extract air from tiny bubbles in the ice, and to find out how the atmosphere’s composition has varied. Preliminary analyses show that the present carbon dioxide concentration is the highest level seen in the last 440,000 years. By understanding what drove past changes in climate, the scientists expect to improve predictions about future climate.
The Dome C drilling is part of the ‘European Project for Ice Coring in Antarctica’ (EPICA). The team at Dome C endured summer temperatures as low as minus 40ºC at the remote drilling site over a thousand kilometres from the nearest research station. The consortium will continue to drill at the site from December 2004, and hopes to reach the rocks at the base of the ice sheet. There are just 100 metres still to drill, and if all goes well, the team will reach ice over 900,000 years old at the base.