Scientists preserve ancient ice cores in Antarctica to protect Earth’s climate history

Scientists have sealed ancient ice cores extracted from the European Alps in a specially constructed snow cave in Antarctica, creating a long-term archive aimed at preserving vital records of Earth’s climate history as glaciers rapidly melt worldwide.

The ice cores are stored at the Concordia research station in Antarctica at a constant temperature of minus 52 degrees Celsius. The facility is a cave about 35 metres long and five metres high and wide, dug roughly 10 metres below the surface into compact snow where freezing conditions remain stable. Researchers recently placed the final boxes containing ice cores from Mont Blanc and Grand Combin into the underground vault.

Ice cores, formed through centuries or millennia of compacted snowfall, contain information about past temperatures, atmospheric composition, and volcanic activity. Scientists warn that thousands of glaciers could disappear in the coming decades due to global warming, risking the permanent loss of these climate records.

Thomas Stocker, a Swiss climate scientist and chair of the Ice Memory Foundation, said preserving ice that would otherwise be lost is an endeavour for humanity. The project, led by the foundation, took nearly a decade and involved major logistical and diplomatic efforts.

The archive is located at a French-Italian research station governed by an international treaty, ensuring political neutrality and scientific access. In the future, scientists plan to add ice cores from regions such as the Andes, Himalayas, and Tajikistan, preserving them for generations of researchers yet to come.