What can ice cores still teach us? What are the big questions in ice core science today?
There are still four major questions which have been underlined by the international ice core research programme, IPICS (International Partnership for Ice Core Science), which currently pools resources from 29 nations. • The first question is ‘How did the climate and carbon cycle evolve prior to 800 000 years ago?’ We know from studying marine sediments that the rhythm of glaciation periods underwent a major reorganization between 1.5 million and 800 000 million years ago, but we do not have any CO2 atmospheric concentration data from that period. Before this reorganization, glaciation periods where more frequent, occurring every 40 000 or so years. During the last million years, glaciation periods have become more intense, and with longer cycles of around 100 000 years. What we want to know is what caused this shift. It’s a fundamental question if we want to understand how the carbon cycle reacted at that time, and how it might react in the future. • The second key question is to unde
