<
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jan/20/at-this-remote-outpost-australians-are-racing-to-find-the-worlds-oldest-ice-and-unlock-the-secrets-it-holds>
"Traversing the world’s most unforgiving continent requires a generous measure
of stoicism. “We took risks, we knew we took them,” wrote the Antarctic
explorer Robert Falcon Scott in 1912, trapped by a fierce blizzard in the days
before he died, on an ill-fated expedition to reach the south pole. “Things
have come out against us, and therefore we have no cause for complaint.”
More than a century later, elemental extremes are still an unfortunate fact of
life for scientists in Antarctica. Despite three seasons of bad luck which have
delayed his team’s quest to find the world’s oldest ice, the paleoclimate
scientist Dr Joel Pedro remains sanguine. He has good reason to be: this
summer, after multiple setbacks and a relocation, a plan years in the making is
finally coming to fruition.
Pedro speaks to
Guardian Australia from a site high on the Antarctic plateau,
where the daytime temperature currently hovers around -30C. He is the lead
scientist for Australia’s Million Year Ice Core project, which is hunting for –
as its name suggests – ice that formed more than a million years ago. Bubbles
of air trapped in that ancient ice will unlock secrets about Earth’s past
climate, and help scientists understand the future as CO₂ in the atmosphere
continues to rise from human activity."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
