Science in race to preserve Arctic’s ice memory

Scientists camped in the Arctic are set to start drilling to save samples of ancient ice for analysis before the frozen layers melt.

The Nansenbreen glacier in Svalbard archipelago, Norway. Picture: AFP

Scientists camped in the Arctic are set to start drilling to save samples of ancient ice for analysis before the frozen layers melt away due to climate change.

Italian, French and Norwegian researchers are in Norway’s Svalbard archipelago in what they called a race against time to preserve crucial ice records for analysing past environmental conditions – planning to ship them all the way to the Antarctic for storage.

“We want to recover and preserve, for future generations of ­scientists, these extraordinary ­archives of our planet’s climate ­before all the information they contain is completely lost,” said paleoclimatologist Carlo Barbante, vice-chairman of the Ice Memory Foundation running the mission.

The eight specialists on the mission have set up camp at an altitude of 1100m on the crevasse-ridden Holtedahlfonna ice field and planned to start drilling on Tuesday. They will extract ice in a series of tubes from as far as 125m below the surface, containing frozen geochemical traces dating back three centuries.

Analysis of chemicals in deep “ice cores” provides scientists with valuable data about past environmental conditions. But experts warn that meltwater is leaking and altering the geochemical records preserved in ancient ice beneath.

Carlo Barbante, left, and other researchers carry part of an ice core in eastern France, following the extraction of two ice cores in 2016. Picture: AFP

One set of the ice tubes extracted will be used for immediate analysis while a second set will be sent to Antarctica for storage in an “ice memory sanctuary” under the snow, where the samples will be preserved for future generations of scientists.

From their remote source, the ice cores will be transported by sea to Europe and later to the other end of the globe, for storage at a Franco-Italian Antarctic research station. There, on territory protected by the Antarctic Treaty, they will be stored under the snow at -50C, where no power is needed to keep them cool.

“In coming decades, researchers will have new ideas and techniques to give voice to these ­archives,” the researchers.

“For instance, they may be able to isolate other information contained in the ice of which we are not aware today.”

The team in Svalbard will work for three weeks in temperatures as low as -25C, cutting and pulling out a series of ice cylinders 10cm wide.

The €700,000 ($1.1m) mission, partly funded by the Italian research ministry, follows a series of earlier ice core extractions by the foundation, including operations in the Alps and the Andes.

Further core-drilling missions are planned in the coming years in Tajikistan and the Himalayas.

A study published in the journal Science in January said half of the Earth’s 215,000 mountain ­glaciers are expected to disappear by the end of this century.

AFP