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Ice drilled from deep in Antarctica holds tiny bubbles of ancient air, letting scientists measure what the atmosphere was like up to 800,000 years ago.

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ScienceClimate

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An ice core is a long cylinder of ice drilled out of a glacier or ice sheet. As snow piles up and is pressed into ice over centuries, it traps small pockets of the surrounding air, along with dust and chemical traces. The European EPICA core from Dome C, in East Antarctica, gives a continuous record going back about 800,000 years. By measuring the gas in the bubbles, scientists can read past levels of carbon dioxide and methane directly, and match them with ice ages, warm periods and volcanic eruptions recorded in the same layers. In early 2025 a follow-up project, Beyond EPICA, finished drilling nearby to a depth of 2,800 metres and reported ice that may extend the record to 1.2 million years.

Türkçe oku
Antarktika'nın derinliklerinden çıkarılan buz, eski havanın küçücük kabarcıklarını saklar. Bilim insanları bu sayede atmosferin 800.000 yıl öncesine kadar nasıl olduğunu ölçebilir.

Buz karotu, bir buzuldan ya da buz tabakasından sondajla çıkarılan uzun, silindir biçiminde bir buz parçasıdır. Kar yüzyıllar boyunca birikip sıkışarak buza dönüşürken çevresindeki havanın küçük ceplerini, toz ve kimyasal izlerle birlikte içine hapseder. Doğu Antarktika'daki Dome C'de Avrupa'nın EPICA projesiyle çıkarılan karot, yaklaşık 800.000 yıl geriye uzanan kesintisiz bir kayıt sunar. Bilim insanları kabarcıklardaki gazı ölçerek geçmişteki karbondioksit ve metan düzeylerini doğrudan okuyabilir, bunları aynı katmanlarda izi kalan buzul çağları, sıcak dönemler ve yanardağ patlamalarıyla eşleştirebilir. 2025'in başında bir sonraki proje, Beyond EPICA, yakındaki bir noktada 2.800 metre derinliğe inen sondajı tamamladı; çıkan buzun kaydı 1,2 milyon yıla kadar uzatabileceği bildirildi.

Sources and further reading

Background reading: Ice core
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