Latest news with #BritishAntarcticSurvey
Metro
3 days ago
- Science
- Metro
Scientists begin melting Earth's oldest ice to unlock 1,500,000-year-old secrets
To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video Unassuming, icicle-like tubes could help answer mysteries about Earth's climate. They are the world's oldest ice cores, which have just landed in the UK after being drilled from the depths of Antarctica. While most of Britain is reeling from weeks of back-to-back heatwaves, scientists in Cambridge find out what the rare blocks of ice can reveal about climate change and our home planet. But to get hold of the ice, they first had to drill for 1.7 miles down the ice sheet at the South Pole. The giant stick of ice was then cut into more manageable chunks and transported to Europe. Scientists hope the pieces will reveal why the planet's climate cycle shifted more than a million years ago, helping to predict Earth's future response to rising greenhouse gas. Dr Liz Thomas, from the British Antarctic Survey in Cambridge, told Reuters: 'We really are exploring a completely unknown time in our history. 'We are hoping to unlock all these amazing secrets.' The new core ice, which was drilled near the Concordia research station in the 'White Continent,' beats the previous 800,000-year-old ice, which was drilled in the early 2000s. Until now, scientists have relied on marine sediments to study the climate cycles. over millions of years. But ice has a special feature invisible to the naked eye – entrapped bubbles showing the atmospheric conditions, amount of greenhouse gas in the air and chemical evidence of temperatures at the time when they were released. And to not make the job too easy for the scientists, Antarctica is the only place on Earth where such a long record of the atmosphere is found. Summer temperatures at the French-Italian Concordia station range from -30°C to -50°C, and can reach a brain-numbing -80°C in winter. Dr Thomas continued: 'Our data will yield the first continuous reconstructions of key environmental indicators—including atmospheric temperatures, wind patterns, sea ice extent, and marine productivity—spanning the past 1.5 million years. 'This unprecedented ice core dataset will provide vital insights into the link between atmospheric CO₂ levels and climate during a previously uncharted period in Earth's history, offering valuable context for predicting future climate change.' The world's largest ice sheet remains shrouded in mystery and intrigue as relatively little is still known about Antarctica. More Trending Geologists believe the continent was once covered in rivers and forests. Satellite data and radars revealed ridges and valleys, suggesting the icy no man's land looked very different 34 million years ago. Meanwhile, conspiracy theorists have their eyes set on Antarctica after Google Map sleuths believe they have found a secret door buried in the mountainside. Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@ For more stories like this, check our news page. MORE: Scorching 40°C temperatures 'will soon become the new normal for the UK' MORE: I love living in London — but it's absolutely vile in the summer MORE: Blame, thoughts and prayers – the uncomfortable truth about politicians and natural disasters
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Science
- Yahoo
These ancient ice cores are more than a million years in the making
STORY: You are looking at some of the oldest ice ever recovered from Antarctica. :: Cambridge, England This week, these cylinder ice samples arrived in the UK for climate analysis, more than a million years after they captured some of the Earth's atmosphere at the time. Dr Liz Thomas leads the Ice Cores team at the British Antarctic Survey at this cold laboratory in Cambridge. "So this is a really exciting project to work on because we really are exploring a completely unknown time in our history and what we're hoping is we're going to unlock all these amazing secrets." :: This Earth :: BAS The ice core was drilled from a depth of 1.7 miles in the East Antarctic Peninsula… :: PNRA:IPEV :: Little Dome C, Antarctica …before it was sawed into carefully labelled segments and shipped to Europe. It's expected to hold a climate record stretching back over 1.5 million years, nearly doubling the current 800,000-year ice core record. A key objective is to understand a massive shift in Earth's glacial-interglacial cycles - that's the recurring shift from warm to cold climates and back - that's occurred over the past million years. Thomas says that could help us predict future climate responses to rising greenhouse gas levels. 'During that time there's evidence to suggest that the ice sheets were actually smaller, sea levels were potentially higher and CO2 similar to today. So it's a really interesting potential analogue for our future climate." Ice cores capture direct evidence of past atmospheric conditions through trapped air bubbles. :: Continuous Flow Analysis Those will be analysed as they are released from the ice as it is slowly melted in a process called Continuous Flow Analysis. The findings will offer the first continuous environmental reconstructions spanning 1.5 million years. :: PNRA:IPEV That will shed light on the link between atmospheric CO2 and climate during a previously uncharted period. Solve the daily Crossword
ABC News
3 days ago
- Science
- ABC News
Scientists recover ice dating back over a million years
Some of the world's oldest ice ever recovered from Antarctica has arrived in the United Kingdom for climate analysis. The ice core — drilled from a depth of 2,800 metres in the East Antarctic Peninsula — is expected to hold a climate record stretching back over 1.5 million years. The recovery nearly doubles the current 800,000-year ice core record. "So this is a really exciting project to work on because we really are exploring a completely unknown time in our history, and what we're hoping is we're going to unlock all these amazing secrets," Liz Thomas, head of the Ice Cores team at the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) in Cambridge, said. The ice core will undergo analysis over the coming years at BAS and other European laboratories. Scientists aim to unlock insights into Earth's climate evolution, focusing on greenhouse gas concentrations, atmospheric temperatures, wind patterns, and sea ice extent. A key objective is to understand why Earth's glacial-interglacial cycles shifted from 41,000 to 100,000 years about 1 million years ago. This gives scientists context for predicting future climate responses to rising greenhouse gas levels. Ice cores capture direct evidence of past atmospheric conditions through trapped air bubbles, which will be analysed as they are released from the ice as it is slowly melted in a process called Continuous Flow Analysis. The findings will shed light on the link between atmospheric CO2 and climate during a previously uncharted period. Funded by the European Commission, Beyond EPICA involves 12 institutions across 10 European countries. Reuters
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Science
- Yahoo
Unique 1.5m year-old ice to be melted to unlock mystery
An ice core that may be older than 1.5 million years has arrived in the UK where scientists will melt it to unlock vital information about Earth's climate. The glassy cylinder is the planet's oldest ice and was drilled from deep inside the Antarctic ice sheet. Frozen inside is thousands of years of new information that scientists say could "revolutionise" what we know about climate change. BBC News went inside the -23C freezer room at the British Antarctic Survey in Cambridge to see the precious boxes of ice. "This is a completely unknown period of our Earth's history," says Dr Liz Thomas, head of ice core research at the British Antarctic Survey. Red warning lights flash above the door, and inside there is an emergency escape hatch into a tunnel in case something went wrong. The rules say we could only go inside for 15 minutes at a time, wearing padded overalls, boots, hats and gloves. Our camera's electronic shutter froze shut and our hair started to crackle as it turned icy. On a worktop next to stacked boxes of ice, Dr Thomas points out the oldest cores that could be 1.5 million years old. They shine and are so clear we can see our hands through them. For seven weeks, the team will slowly melt the hard-won ice, releasing ancient dust, volcanic ash, and even tiny marine algae called diatoms that were locked inside when water turned to ice. These materials can tell scientists about wind patterns, temperature, and sea levels more than a million years ago. Tubes will feed the liquid into machines in a lab next door that is one of the only places in the world that can do this science. It was a huge multinational effort to extract the ice cores in Antarctica, at a cost of millions. The ice was chopped into 1m blocks and transported by boat and then in a cold van to Cambridge. Engineer James Veal helped to extract the ice close to the Concordia base in eastern Antarctica. "To hold that in my carefully gloved hands and be very careful not to drop the sections - it was an amazing feeling," he says. Two institutions in Germany and Switzerland also have received cross-sections of the 2.8km core. The teams could find evidence of a period of time more than 800,000 years ago when carbon dioxide concentrations may have been naturally as high or even higher than they are now, according to Dr Thomas. This could help them understand what will happen in our future as our planet responds to warming gases trapped in our atmosphere. "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," she says. The difference between today and previous eras with high greenhouse gases is that now humans have caused the rapid rise in warming gases in the last 150 years. That is taking us into unchartered territory, but the scientists hope that the record of our planet's environmental history locked in the ice could give us some guidance. The team will identify chemical isotopes in the liquid that could tell us the wind patterns, temperatures, and rainfall for a period of time between 800,000 and up to 1.5 million years ago or possibly more. They will use an instrument called an inductively couple plasma mass spectrometer (ICPMS) to measure over 20 elements and trace metals. That includes rare earth elements, sea salts and marine elements, as well as indicators of past volcanic eruptions. The work will help scientists understand a mysterious change called the Mid-Pleistocene Transition 800,000 to 1.2 million years ago when the planet's glacial cycles suddenly changed. The transition from warmer eras to cold glacial eras, when ice covered a lot more of Earth, had been every 41,000 years but it suddenly switched to 100,000 years. The cause of this shift is one of the "most exciting unsolved questions" in climate science, according to Dr Thomas. The cores may have evidence of a time when sea levels were much higher than they are now and when the vast Antarctic ice sheets were smaller. The presence of dust in the ice will help them understand how the ice sheets shrunk and contributed to sea level rise - something that is a major concern this century. Million year-old bubbles could solve ice age mystery Solve the daily Crossword
Otago Daily Times
4 days ago
- Science
- Otago Daily Times
On thin ice: Science at the end of the world
A new documentary following climate scientists to Antarctica, explains the physics of our predicament, Tom McKinlay writes. It's cold in Middlemarch, Pat Langhorn reports when she picks up the phone. "There's still ice on the puddles." It's a commonplace enough observation from the Strath Taieri in winter, but the point the professor is making is that the ice has survived late into the day, despite all attentions from the season's admittedly weak sun. Too little energy in it, given the Earth's lean, for it to return the puddle water to liquid. Emeritus Prof Langhorn knows why. "We were walking today, as I said, and there was ice on the puddles, and people were poking it and saying, 'oh look, there's still ice'. And I said, 'well, you know, it takes an awful lot of energy to melt ice, and a lot of energy to freeze it as well'." Physics is the professor's area of expertise. Ice too. Melting a kilogram of ice takes as much energy as it would to raise that same volume of water to 80°C, she explains. A revealing little truth, neatly explaining Middlemarch's slippery winter reality. But in Prof Langhorn's world it also has other more existential implications. For decades now, Prof Langhorn has been studying sea ice. Initially her field work was in the Arctic but, by the second half of the the 1980s, the focus had switched to Antarctica - she's been based at the University of Otago since 1988. At both poles sea ice has been in decline, failing to form or melting more. That's a worry. Because the sun will continue to send its heat and light, that won't change. But if the sea ice isn't there to meet it, all that energy once consumed by the business of melting is going to do other work instead. "The thought that suddenly there isn't that ice there taking up all this energy and instead it goes into heating the ocean is a bit frightening, I think," Prof Langhorn says. The physics lesson about the kilogram of ice, delivered again by Prof Langhorn, appears in a new documentary, Mighty Indeed , which will screen at this year's Doc Edge documentary film festival. It follows a couple of scientists down to the Antarctic, oceanographer Dr Natalie Robinson and microbiology PhD candidate Jacqui Stewart, representatives of a new generation walking in Prof Langhorne's snowy footsteps. There's plenty of frightening in Mighty Indeed and frightened people - the scientists - but it also manages to celebrate both women in science and the extraordinary unimagined benefits of blue-skies research, the science for science's sake that ends up making an outsized contribution to the human project. Prof Langhorne has experienced the highs and lows of both the former and the latter at first hand. The Scotswoman trained in the UK - Aberdeen then Cambridge's Scott Polar Research Institute - and applied to join the British Antarctic Survey back in the '70s. She made it through the first round, but then the penny dropped that "Pat" was not "Patrick" and her application went no further. "I mean, things have changed quite dramatically in the area in which I've been involved, in which I've had my career, not just in terms of the science, and, of course, the sea ice has changed dramatically, and that's a very depressing story, but a more uplifting story is that it's now much easier for any gender to be involved in science. Gender is not the issue that it once was in that line of work," she says. "So now, you know, if you go to a sea ice conference, there will be at least as many women there as men, which is quite a change." Prof Langhorne is also an advocate for the latter - curiosity and blue-skies science. "Yes, definitely. And, I mean, again, from my own personal perspective, younger people, as I got towards the end of my career, thought that I had somehow magically seen there was going to be a problem and gone searching to understand this problem, which, of course, was not the truth at all. You know, I was interested in sea ice, and at the time that I started to look at sea ice, it was really considered very sort of flippant and why would you bother?" It's a demonstration, she says, of the importance of people deciding what they're interested in and doing their very best to follow that line of inquiry. However, it's no longer a very fashionable idea, she says with regret. That's an obstacle for her young colleagues. "Blue-skies research is really important, because often it's by exploring things that we don't know that we find out things that we didn't know we were going to find out. We didn't know we didn't know them." She has observed the building expectation that science should always be at the service of some calculable, bankable output - should be innovating towards a particular application. "That's just not going to get you the best science," she says. "You can't innovate by thinking, 'well, this morning I'm going to get up and be innovative'. It's not usually the way it goes. So, yeah, I think exploration is really important." Prof Langhorne can't remember the moment when her physicist's "flippant" interest in sea ice became climate science and vitally important to the future of civilisation as we know it. Indeed, back when she started, if anyone outside the academy was giving sea ice any thought at all, it was likely to be as an impediment to drilling for oil. Not that fossil fuel was ever part of her interest. And even Prof Langhorne's first trip to the southern continent had a focus on relatively quotidian matters - on ice as a platform for vehicles and for aircraft to land on. "So there was a fairly gradual transition, I would say, from thinking about it in terms of 'here is something that's an impediment that we need to move in order to get at the oil that's inconveniently underneath the sea ice', to, goodness me, 'this sea ice is really, really important to climate, and we need to understand why it's disappearing'." By the mid-1990s the interest was squarely on the interaction between ice and ocean and what a warming ocean would mean for the sea ice. There are lots of reasons to care about sea ice. It reflects sunlight back into space, preventing it heating the dark ocean below. It protects the Antarctic's ice sheets and shelves from the action of the ocean - holding back sea level rise - and it plays a vital role in overturning circulation, the ocean currents that have such an important role in regulating the planet's climate, distributing heat from the poles to the equator. In another enlightening lesson in physics, delivered again by Prof Langhorne in Mighty Indeed , we learn the freezing of the sea ice leaves the water below saltier, briny, that salty water sinks and helps drive those planet-spanning currents. "So there's a balancing on the Earth." In recent years, Prof Langhorne's interest has been at the interface between the ocean and the sea ice and the problem of measuring sea ice thickness remotely - as drilling holes through the ice in Antarctica's testing conditions is no easy task. "Without knowing how thick it is, you actually don't know how much you have, because, is it a thick slab of butter on your toast, or is it all spread out very thinly? And if you're only looking from above and seeing what the total area is, what the coverage is, then you're not including some of the energy that's tied up with the presence or absence of sea ice, and it's that energy that we really need to care about." It is the extra heat energy stored in the ocean as a result of greenhouse gas-driven planetary heating that is thought to be behind the decline in Antarctic sea ice - both in terms of the temperatures in the ocean and atmospheric influences. Concern has ramped up since 2016, when significant decreases began to be recorded. The consistent trend since has been for less sea ice. The five lowest extents recorded have all been since 2017 and 2025 is thought to be the second consecutive year with a sea ice minimum extent below 2 million km2. It's change on an epic scale: the sea ice ring around the frozen continent covers an area twice the size of Australia. So going back to Prof Langhorne's kilogram of ice example, it's possible - or possibly impossible - to understand just how much energy is bound up in these processes. Sobering, the professor says. As long as it's tied up in the sea ice, keeping the sea surface close to 0°C, it's not allowing our temperatures to go bananas, she says. We've already seen a little of what it could mean. "There are bigger storms than there used to be and that, unfortunately, that's going to be the main change for us, I think, apart from some sea level rise. The main change is just going to be storm events that get bigger and bigger and bigger and wilder and wilder because all that energy has been sucked out of the ocean and comes to us in storms and flooding events and droughts." The physicist strikes a note of optimism in the documentary, asserting that in her discipline problems are tractable. Solutions can be found. However, she concedes that to a very significant extent science has now done its work as far as climate change is concerned. The problem is now clear and we know what the solutions are. What's left is us. "I think if we're talking about the problem, in inverted commas, of climate change, and how to mitigate some of the less wanted effects of climate change, then I think the problem is that human beings are in the system too," she says. "The problem is that it's not a problem in physics; it's a problem in human behaviour, which is much more unpredictable, and much less satisfactory in my view." But she leans into the belief that human beings are wired for hope and optimism, equipped with an almost indefatigable ability to get up every morning confident that today can be better than yesterday. "I think that it takes quite a lot to completely dampen people's enthusiasm for life, actually." That's not to say Prof Langhorne hasn't had her moments. "When I retired, I thought about what I could do that would be best for the world and the conclusion I quickly came to was that the best thing I could do was die. It would be honestly the best thing I could do," she says. "But I just didn't really want to do that." Among the challenges we face, she says, is to identify the changes we regard as acceptable, that preserve the life we want to have, while at the same time making the planet a better place. "But, I mean, that's all sounding very highfalutin. I think that's what most people do, most days, is make judgements like that." Again, Prof Langhorne sees our present as a more difficult environment than she had to navigate. Young people have more decisions to make than she did, she says. A more difficult future to confront. "Climate change is physics. And if it is not going to be all right, it is not going to be all right." Dr Robinson, the oceanographer and next generation sea ice researcher, speaks to that in the documentary, saying she feels like she knows too much and shares her concern for how she talks about climate change around her young children. She is losing sleep over it. Her children will need different skills for the future they are inheriting, the climate legacy they will inherit, she says. Resilience and an ability to meet challenges among them. She tries not to think about it too much. PhD candidate Jacqui Stewart calls working in the field a mental health battle. "Because ... you know." Sometime it gets too much, she says. She has decided not to have children. For her the ice is already too thin. The film • Mighty Indeed screens as part of the Doc Edge film festival online from July 28 to August 24. •
