European lead in reading past climates from...(a decisive technological and scientific ...)

These ice cores directly illuminate current climate debates. As Stocker points out, air bubbles allow us to measure how much methane and carbon dioxide there was in the air when the snow fell. These especially carbon dioxide are the principal greenhouse gases in the Earths atmosphere. It is clear that they are now at their most abundant for hundreds of thousands of years. By contrast, the most-used direct measurements of atmospheric carbon dioxide, made on Hawaii, only date back to 1958. So as Stocker says: EPICA results form a cornerstone of the current climate debate.

EPICA has been responsible for drilling and investigating two deep ice cores in Antarctica. One was at a site called Dome C, and the other at Kohnen research station in Queen Maud Land. At Dome C, ice was drilled out to a depth of 3270m, stopping in December 2004 just 5m above the rocky basement below. Because of the immense pressure at this depth, there is liquid water above the rock, so drilling was stopped to avoid polluting it. At Kohnen station, drilling was completed in January 2006 at a depth of 2774m, where the ice was estimated to be 150,000 years old.

Stocker says that this research is being pushed forward under the umbrella of the current International Polar Year, in which ESF is a contributor. Recently a new project called NEEM (North Greenland Eemian Ice Drilling) has been launched to investigate the Eemian period in Earth history. This warm period from about 130,000 to 115,000 years ago shares similarities with an imminent future greenhouse Earth, and it had sea levels about 7m higher than those we observe today. The NEEM project forms part of IPICS, the International Partnership in Ice Core Sciences. Stocker explains that one of the aims of IPICS is to find the oldest ice in Gre
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