Why do scientists study ice cores in Antarctica?
Eleanor Goodman, Bolton To understand the behaviour of the Antarctica s ice sheet, it is also necessary to understand the physical properties of ice as a material. Scientist handling an ice core As snow falls, it carries with it minute bubbles of air and traces of any impurities in the atmosphere at the time. When the snow becomes buried and compressed into ice, those impurities and samples of air are trapped too. In this way, the snow layers become a permanent record of atmospheric conditions going back far into the past. The precise chemical composition of the trapped air holds a clue to the climate at the time the snow fell and careful analysis can reveal today just what that composition is. Equally, it is now possible to detect minute traces of impurities in snow samples. To investigate conditions in the past, scientists need to drill out a long core from deep into the ice sheet. Small samples from along the core can then be analysed to see how thing have changed over time. The rec
