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It's -30 degrees Celsius, even though the Sun hangs ceaselessly in the sky. Dressed in puffy, insulated suits and gloves thick enough to both hinder dexterity and preserve fingers, a team gamely tilts a drill barrel back to horizontal. With one smooth, firm motion, a two-meter-long cylinder of ice, bursting with history, is pushed free and slides down a temporary work bench.
Inside a huge walk-in freezer in suburban Denver, a college student in a thick parka shoots a jolt of electricity through a yard-long column of ice extracted from Antarctica. Just outside the freezer, in a much warmer room, a computer wired to the ice registers a sudden spike in a jagged red line crawling across the screen.
The Spring 2016 In-Depth newsletter from the National Ice Core Laboratory-Science Management Office (NICL-SMO) is now available online at https://icecores.org/indepth/
In the Spring 2016 issue:
Betty Adrian, NICL Technical Director, retires
:: by By Betty Adrian, Technical Director, NICL (retired)
Princeton researchers go to the end of the Earth for the world's oldest ice
:: by Morgan Kelly, courtesy of Princeton University Office of Communications
Getting to the Bottom of SPICECORE: Researchers drill deep into the ice beneath the South Pole to sample Earth's ancient atmosphere
:: by Michael Lucibella, Antarctic Sun Editor
$2.3M grant moves ice cores a step closer to UAlberta
:: by Jennifer Pascoe, courtesy of the University of Alberta
Report from the 2nd International Partnerships in Ice Core Sciences open science conference
:: by Eric Wolff, IPICS co-chair and co-chair of SCAR's IPICS Expert Group
Ice Core Young Scientists (ICYS) workshop report
:: by ICYS Executive Committee
We are interested in project stories and news from the ice coring community. Please contact us if you are interested in submitting a story or news item to In-Depth.
As the winch extracted a two-meter-long cylinder of ancient ice in late December, Murat Aydin looked on. "If we can keep this pace up we should be able to hit 1,600 meters," he said. "This is going to be the deepest ice core drilled at the South Pole by quite a margin." By the end of the project a month later, researchers with the South Pole Ice Core project, known more succinctly as SPICECORE, had exceeded even their most ambitious goals.
The Fall 2015 In-Depth newsletter from the National Ice Core Laboratory-Science Management Office (NICL-SMO) is now available online at https://icecores.org/indepth/
In the Fall 2015 issue:
Immerse yourself in ice: The U.S. Ice Drilling Program's "School of Ice"
:: by Linda Morris, Dartmouth College/U.S. Ice Drilling Program Office
International research team drills new Greenland ice core through the Renland ice cap
:: by NICL-SMO
Volcanic eruptions that changed human history
:: Desert Research Institute Press Release
New program directors within Division of Polar Programs
:: by NICL-SMO
Empowering educators at the School of Ice: U.S. Ice Drilling Program Office Offers Educators a Close-Up Look at Ice Core Science
:: by Mike Lucibella, Antarctic Sun editor
We are interested in project stories and news from the ice coring community. Please contact us if you are interested in submitting a story or news item to In-Depth.
To the casual observer, mid-June may not seem like the ideal time to explore the science of ancient ice. However, last month, as the hot sun beat down outside, a dozen geoscience professors donned boots and thick red parkas to brave sub-zero freezers and learn the secrets embedded in ice many thousands of years old, from the coldest places on Earth.
It might be easy to agree that global climates are changing, but what's driving the change is a much more controversial topic of conversation. Climate scientists are confident that human activity is a main driver, but how did they come to that conclusion? Research at places like the National Ice Core Lab in Lakewood, Colorado, help provide answers.
The Spring 2015 In-Depth Newsletter is now available online at https://icecores.org/indepth/
In the Spring 2015 issue:
Digging the Disko: Developing ice core climate records around Disko Bay, west Greenland
:: by Luke Trusel
Cold and SPICE-y
:: by Mindy Nicewonger
Antarctic ice core reveals how sudden climate changes in North Atlantic moved south
:: NSF Press Release 15-048
Going deep: Drilling project to retrieve longest ice core ever from South Pole
:: by Peter Rejcek, Antarctic Sun editor
We are interested in project stories and news from the ice coring community. Please contact us if you are interested in submitting a story or news item to In-Depth.
This winter, when many people's imaginations were fixed on the North Pole, a small group of scientists has been working on the other side of the planet. In round-the-clock daylight and frigid temperatures, glaciologists have been drilling an ice core at the South Pole.
Drilling continues through the end of January for the first of two years of a joint project by the University of Washington and the University of California, Irvine. The National Science Foundation is funding the South Pole Ice Core Project to dig into climate history at the planet's southernmost tip.
The Fall 2014 In-Depth Newsletter is now available online at https://icecores.org/indepth/
In the Fall 2014 issue:
NICL Long Range Sustainability Plan
Development of Intermediate Drill set to produce Antarctic ice cores from 1,500 meters
:: by Rachel Walker
NICL Experience Inspires Path Forward
:: by Jen Lennon
IPICS 2nd Open Science Conference
We are interested in project stories and news from the ice coring community. Please contact us if you are interested in submitting a story or news item to In-Depth.