Rare Ice-Core Sample Provides Data on Tropical Climate of the Past 1,800 Years

A new, rare ice core from the Quelccaya ice cap in Peru has revealed some unique insight into changes in tropical climate over the past 1,800 years, a new study reports.

The Quelccaya ice cap is the largest tropical ice cap in the world and has now provided researchers with a year-by-year record of the tropical climate. The ice cores show alternating light and dark layers which show the dry and wet seasons on the ice cap.

The study was conducted by the Ohio State University researchers who collected samples from this remote ice cap in 2003. The study team found that there were similarities in the composition of ice cores obtained from Quelccaya and those obtained from the Himalayas, even though both the sites are at opposite sides of the Earth.

"These ice cores provide the longest and highest-resolution tropical ice core record to date," said Lonnie Thompson, professor of earth sciences at Ohio State and lead author of the study, according to a news release.

The data from the ice core will provide researchers from around the world a deeper insight into the changes in climate. However, one of the immediate findings of the plants that had been captured by the ice cap have now started to appear at its edges, showing that the ice cap is shrinking now.

The team found that ice that had accumulated over a period of 1,600 years had melted in just 25 years, reports The New York Times.

The study is published in the journal Science.

Previous research from Ohio State University had shown that the ice sheet atop Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania is rapidly shrinking.