Scientists camped in the Arctic will begin drilling on Monday to save samples of ancient ice for analysis before the frozen layers melt due to climate change, mission organizers said.
Researchers from Italy, France, and Norway are in Svalbard, Norway, in what they call a race against time to preserve critical ice records for analyzing past environmental conditions, with plans to ship them all the way to Antarctica for storage.
"Glaciers at high latitudes, such as those in the Arctic, have begun to melt at an alarming rate," said paleoclimatologist Carlo Barbante, vice-chairman of the Ice Memory Foundation, which is in charge of the mission.
Scientists in Arctic race to preserve 'ice memory'
JOSEPH PREZIOSO/AFP via Getty Images
The mission's eight specialists have established a camp at an altitude of 1,100 meters on the crevasse-ridden Holtedahlfonna ice field and plan to begin drilling on Tuesday, according to Ice Memory, as per Phys.org.
They will extract ice from as far as 125 meters (137 yards) below the surface in a series of tubes, containing frozen geochemical traces dating back three centuries.
Chemical analysis in deep "ice cores" provides scientists with valuable information about past environmental conditions.
Experts warn, however, that meltwater is leaking down and altering the geochemical records preserved beneath the ancient ice.
According to Jerome Chapellaz, president of the foundation, "Ice scientists are seeing their primary material disappear forever from the surface of the planet."
Since the nineteenth century, human-caused carbon emissions have warmed the planet by 1.1 degrees Celsius. According to studies, the Arctic is warming two to four times faster than the global average.
One set of the extracted ice tubes will be analyzed immediately, while the other set will be sent to Antarctica for storage in a "ice memory sanctuary" under the snow, where the samples will be preserved for future generations of scientists.
The ice cores will be transported by sea from their remote source to Europe and then to the other end of the globe for storage at a Franco-Italian Antarctic research station.
They will be stored under the snow at minus 50 degrees Celsius on Antarctic Treaty territory, where no power is required to keep them cool.
For three weeks, the team in Svalbard will cut and pull out a series of cylinders of ice 10cm (four inches) wide in temperatures as low as minus 25C (-13 Farenheit).
The 700,000-euro ($760,000) mission follows a series of previous ice core extractions by the foundation, including operations in the Alps and the Andes.
More core-drilling missions are planned for Tajikistan and the Himalayas in the coming years.
The Arctic is warming three times faster than the rest of the world. This is primarily due to the fact that melting snow and ice exposes a darker surface, increasing the amount of solar energy absorbed in these areas (albedo effect), as per Norsk Polar Institute.
This significant regional warming causes continued sea ice loss, glacier melt, and the melting of the Greenland ice cap.
The Arctic is distinguished by distinct components made up of frozen water: glaciers, snow, permafrost, and iced-over water.
The cryosphere is made up of these components. All parts of the cryosphere are vulnerable to climate change and play critical roles in the global climate system.
