Ice Core Essay ⋆ Environment Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

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Ice forms at different rates and in different ways. Over time, the ice recrystallizes and traps small amounts of air, which vary according to environmental conditions. Since new layers form over the top of existing layers of ice, it is possible to obtain an accurate historical record of the past by drilling an ice core sample through a long-standing ice field. The best places to take these samples are in polar regions where the ice has been undisturbed for thousands of years.

One of the most famous examples of ice core drilling and analysis was the Greenland Ice Core Project. Visual records of the past stretching back hundreds of thousands of years have been obtained using this method. Such ice core samples may be several miles in length or longer. Analysis of such samples must consequently be a cooperative affair. Identifying particles of dust, nuclear radiation, and different isotypes of, for example, oxygen and the cross-referencing of the presence of these particles with other known records (including sediments) helps to triangulate the data for even greater reliability. An ice core analysis enabled scientists to determine that the earth’s climate is subject to sudden, abrupt changes such as the one that ended the last ice age within just three years. It has also been an important tool in determining the extent and rate of change of climate change in the modern world.

Mountain glaciers can also provide useful information. Global climate warming is putting these records at risk, however. Obtaining ice core samples necessitates burrowing deep down into the ice with a powered tube, which requires considerable amounts of power and expense. The retrieved ice core is extruded from the drilling device and sliced into convenient lengths for processing and analysis. Contamination and decompression of the sample are threats to the integrity of the ice. Chemical analysis, chromatography, and mass spectrometry are among the techniques that are employed to determine the contents of the core. Changes due to dramatic events such as volcanic eruptions and the dust produced by volcanoes may be evident in an ice core sample.

Bibliography:

Richard B. Alley, The Two-Mile Time Machine: Ice Cores, Abrupt Climate Change, and Our Future (Princeton University Press, 2002);
D. Charles, J. Lynch-Stieglitz, U.S. Ninnemann, and R.G. Fairbanks, “Climate Connections between the Hemisphere Revealed by Deep Sea Sediment Core/Ice Core Correlations,” Earth and Planetary Science Letters (v.142/1, 1996).