Team of scientists retrieve massive Antarctic core sample to better understand warming planet

By Molly McCrea

Under bone-chilling conditions, an international team of scientists has unlocked the secrets to better understand a rapidly-warming planet.

The 29 scientists – including geologists, engineers, physicists, microbiologists, and polar specialists – have drilled more than 1,600 feet through the Antarctic ice sheet to reach into the seabed. 

“It’s a project that has been more than 10 years in the making,” said Tina van de Flierdt with Imperial College London. She is also the co-chief scientist for the project known as the “Sensitivity of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet to 2 Degrees Celsius of Warming,” or SWAIS2C for short.

The group has extracted a record-breaking vertical core of sediment about 750 feet long. The sediment is packed with layers of mud, sand, fossils, and other debris accumulated for millions of years.

“We are the first people ever to see sediment from underneath that ice. Nobody has seen this before,” said van de Flierdt.

These layers provide a record of the Earth’s history over multiple climate changes – from the ice ages to when it warmed up and became more greenhouse and tropical.

“It’s unprecedented, and I’m really excited about it,” said Dr. Kurt Cuffey, an environmental geophysicist at the University of California at Berkeley who specializes in the physics of glaciers.

He was impressed with the technical achievement of retrieving the core and is looking forward to seeing the analysis from the team. Cuffey explained how an analysis of the layers could finally answer some critical questions

“If they succeed with the analysis, then we will have a definitive answer to questions that we’ve been wrestling with for decades about how the ice sheet will respond to warming,” Cuffey said.

Cuffey said there should be no confusion between weather and climate. While the weather might be cold at times, overall our planet is warming.

“The planet has been warming since the late 19th century,” Cuffey said. “The first 50 years or so of the warming had some human component, but it was largely natural. But then, starting around 1980, the planet continued to warm at a pretty good rate, and essentially all of that is due to human agency, due to changes, primarily in the composition of the atmosphere.”

The SWAIS2C team believes an analysis of the sediment core may guide plans for how coastal communities and cities can better adapt to sea level rise.