Overview
- The underground repository at Antarctica’s Concordia station was inaugurated today in a tunnel 35 meters long and 5 meters high and wide, dug beneath 9 meters of snow and maintained near −52 C at roughly 3,200 meters altitude.
- Initial deposits include cores from Col du Dôme and the Grand Combin, with about 1.7 tons of ice shipped from Europe between October and December on an Italian icebreaker in −20 C refrigerated crates.
- The preserved cores hold layered records of snowfall, temperature, atmospheric composition, dust, and pollutants that future researchers can analyze with technologies not yet available.
- Project leaders describe a race against time as many glaciers are on track to vanish, and Copernicus and Berkeley Earth reported that 2025 was the world’s third-warmest year with 2026 expected to remain at historically high levels.
- Organizers say no legal framework currently governs the long-term custody of the archive and they are urging national and UN agencies to help establish durable oversight.