Scientists Extract 1.2-Million-Year-Old Ice Core, Unlocking Earth's Climate History

The ancient ice, retrieved from Antarctica's Little Dome C, could reveal insights into past climate shifts and refine models for future predictions.

Researchers from the Beyond EPICA project successfully drilled a 2.8-kilometer ice core from Antarctica, containing air bubbles and particles dating back 1.2 million years.
The ice core provides the oldest continuous climate record ever extracted, offering a detailed timeline of Earth's atmospheric conditions during the Mid-Pleistocene Transition.
This period, 900,000 to 1.2 million years ago, saw a dramatic shift in glacial cycles, and scientists aim to uncover the role of greenhouse gases and ice sheet dynamics during this time.
The project, involving scientists from 10 European countries, hopes to refine climate models by analyzing ancient CO2 and methane levels using advanced techniques.
The findings could shed light on historical climate shifts, near-extinction events in early human populations, and the impact of anthropogenic emissions on current climate systems.