Introduction to Ice Cores…

  • Why Ice?

    It is one of the oldest known minerals for research and lifestyle. It has a variety of forms:

    Frost, snow, hail, sleet, ice plates, icicles, polycrystals and permafrost

    It has the ability to hold onto artifacts as well as climate history

  • How are they obtained?

    “Drilling ice cores…involves getting on a ski-equipped plane and flying a few hundred miles over snow to a place where people live in tents at a temperature of thirty degrees below zero…drillers race the short summer to pull sticks of ice up…analyze that ice, and ship it home” (Alley 2000, 17)

  • Utilization

    Ice cores are obtained from glaciers and ice sheets, most commonly found in Antarctica and Greenland

    Layer by layer, scientists study 80cm chunks at a time. These chunks provide useful data from previous climate and emission.

    Bubbles are entrapped within 150,000 years worth of ice! This helps supply extensive information for researchers and scientists to make sense of the timeline and data!

Types of Analysis of Ice Cores:

Gas Analysis -

Because gas is encapsulated and trapped in up to 150,000 years worth of ice, there are tons of tiny bubbles all throughout the ice core obtained. Scientists are able to look at past concentrations of greenhouse gasses, as well as carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4) availability. Results are compared to what those CH4 and CO2 levels are now, and conclusions can be made!

Dating Methods -

Layers in the ice are, for the most part, quite distinctive to pick apart. Because of that, scientists will count each layer individually by annual year. By identifying it’s date, researchers are then able to begin other processes of analyses such as chemical, isotope, laboratory and further gas experimentation

Isotope Analysis -

This is a type of analysis where the ratio of different isotopes are measured. Isotopes are essentially atoms of the same element and relatively the same composition, however have varying numbers of neutrons. One of the common Isotopes studied is oxygen, specifically oxygen-18 : oxygen-16 ratio. Oxygen-18 is heavier than oxygen-16. The data obtained can tell a lot about temperatures:

  • High ration of 18 : 16, resembles a warmer climate

    • Because there is more abundance of oxygen-18 in the water

  • Low ratio of 18 : 16, resembles a colder climate

Chemical Analysis -

This is quite similar to gas and isotope analysis, but is a broader term used to study more than just oxygen entrapped in the ice. Other chemical elements such as dust or ash, maybe even metallic elements, can share a lot about past environmental disasters of events that occurred

  • These ice layers are melted piece-wise and the water is then analyzed under microscopes

  • Scientists specifically keep a lookout for all chemical possibilities within the ice!