Howling winds take sea salt from the Southern Ocean and lay it down in Antarctica as snow, then ice. Hidden in these ice cores is a warning about Australian fire seasons.
A diagram of a lunar eclipse from De Sphaera Mundi by Johannes de Sacrobosco, c. 1240 AD.
New York Public Library
Medieval monks recorded hundreds of lunar eclipses. Centuries later, their descriptions are helping scientists unravel the role of volcanoes in historical climate change.
Natural records suggest a cooling trend was underway thousands of years ago.
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The last time global carbon dioxide levels were around 400ppm was four million years ago. On average, the world was 3°C warmer, but in high northern latitudes, it was up to 14°C warmer than today.
New research suggests ancient climate change shaped the fate of western civilisation.
The analysis of large amounts of ice from Antarctica’s Taylor Valley has helped scientists to tease apart the natural and human-made sources of the potent greenhouse gas methane.
Hinrich Schaefer
A new millennium-long record reveals that Australia has suffered longer droughts and wet periods than those recorded in the past century’s weather observations.
Million-year-old ice likely lies more than 3km below Antarctica’s surface.
Tas van Ommen
An international study of ice cores has helped researchers pave the way for a better understanding of how Antarctica’s volcanoes have affected the global climate over the past 2,000 years. The research…
Ice core samples storing mysteries from bygone eras.
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Ice cores are cylinders of ice drilled from glaciers and ice sheets. When snow falls it takes with it a record of many aspects of the atmosphere. As long as no melting takes place, this information is…
How can air bubbles trapped in ice for millions of years, or fossilised fern fronds, or the chemical make-up of rocks that were underwater in the distant past provide us with an inkling of our future…
The past is the key to the future. When snow falls on polar ice sheets, in Greenland and Antarctica for example, air is trapped between the snowflakes. Year after year, the snow compacts under its own…