“The West Antarctic Ice Sheet in Antarctica is currently losing mass at an unprecedented rate,” van de Flierdt said , continuing more
“It is one of the most vulnerable components in the Earth system to increasing warming. But we fundamentally do not know when and how fast it will disintegrate and raise global sea level by several metres.”
Summary :
- Ice Core Recovery: Drilling 580 meters into the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, the team extracts a 1.92-meter sediment core.
- Scientific Significance: Core provides historical climate insights that are essential for comprehending the vulnerability of ice sheets and projected sea level rise.
- Difficulties and Prospects for the Future: In spite of obstacles, smaller retrieved cores inform efforts for a thorough understanding of the climate for the following year.
It is envisaged that the contents of the half-kilometer-deep ice tunnel will provide insight into historical climate change and how human activity may impact future climates.
A 2:00 PMThe longest sediment core ever recovered from the isolated Siple Coast was obtained by a multinational team of researchers who were co-led by GNS Science, Victoria University of Wellington, and Antarctica New Zealand. The team drilled through 580 meters of ice.
The West Antarctic Ice Sheet’s historical response to climate change is expected to be greatly illuminated by the 1.92m sediment core, which may contain a geological record that extends thousands of years beneath its layers, according to a joint press release released today by GNS Science, Victoria University of Wellington, and Antarctica New Zealand.
A team of 27 scientists, drillers, and other crew members camped out at the KIS-3 drilling site, the “grounding zone” of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet where the massive mass of ice starts to float as the Ross Ice Shelf, and they worked to extract the core.
As part of the Sensitivity of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet to 2°C (SWAIS2C) project, the crew, which was based 860 kilometers from Scott Base, slept and worked in tents on the ice from late November to early January. Antarctica New Zealand and the United States Antarctic Program (USAP) provided logistical support for the team.
The crew used a specially designed drilling system called the Antarctic Intermediate Depth Drill (AIDD) to melt through nearly 580 meters of ice, breaking through the base of the ice shelf into the 55 meters-thick ocean cavity that lies between the ice and the ancient layers of mud and rock below in order to retrieve the core deep in the Antarctic seafloor.
The drill had never been operated this far from a base and this near to the center of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet until the successful retrieval.
SWAIS2C’s co-chief scientist from GNS Science and Victoria University of Wellington, Richard Levy, said the crew drilled through the ice shelf “to acquire sediment samples that no one has previously been able to obtain”.
“It’s cutting-edge science and incredibly challenging work,” Levy said.
However, technical challenges meant operations were halted, and the decision was made to retrieve the equipment and end deep-drilling operations for the season.
“This year we got tantalisingly close. With the knowledge we’ve gained from the samples collected and the technological experiments conducted we have an excellent chance next year to recover the long sediment cores to provide the climate insights we’re chasing,” Levy said.
After being compelled to come up with new, time-consuming coring techniques, the crew managed to extract nine smaller cores and a 1.92-meter core.
It is anticipated that the substantial core dates back hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of years. The record would run back 125,000 years to the last interglacial period, during which Earth’s temperature was 1.5C higher than pre-industrial levels, or close to what it will be this year owing to climate change.
According to Tina van de Flierdt, a fellow SWAIS2C co-chief scientist from Imperial College London, it will contain important data about Antarctic ice and how it reacts to global warming.
Levy said the “sequence of rocks in the sediment” will give researchers a picture of “how the West Antarctic Ice Sheet behaved when it was a bit warmer than today – if we find marine algae it’s likely the ice sheet retreated”.
“This information will allow us to build a much better picture of how Antarctic ice will respond to future warming, which parts will melt first, and which parts will remain,” he said.
To learn more about the microorganisms that inhabit the environment, the samples’ microbiological composition will be examined in addition to the geologic record. Additionally, significant information about the grounding zone’s characteristics and ocean currents was gathered.
“These samples offer a huge increase in the amount of material we have to help us understand the present-day environment beneath the ice shelf, and the history those sediments represent. They also give us insight into the types of rock we will need to drill through to get those deeper records we’re seeking,” Levy said.
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