Unique 1.5m year-old ice to be melted to unlock mystery

Georgina Rannard

Climate and science correspondent

Reporting from

British Antarctic Survey, Cambridge

An ice core that may be older than 1.5 million years has arrived in the UK where scientists will melt it to unlock vital information about Earth’s climate.

The glassy cylinder is the planet’s oldest ice and was drilled from deep inside the Antarctic ice sheet.

Frozen inside is thousands of years of new information that scientists say could “revolutionise” what we know about climate change.

BBC News went inside the -23C freezer room at the British Antarctic Survey in Cambridge to see the precious boxes of ice.

“This is a completely unknown period of our Earth’s history,” says Dr Liz Thomas, head of ice core research at the British Antarctic Survey.

Red warning lights flash above the door, and inside there is an emergency escape hatch into a tunnel in case something went wrong.

The rules say we could only go inside for 15 minutes at a time, wearing padded overalls, boots, hats and gloves.

Our camera’s electronic shutter froze shut and our hair started to crackle as it turned icy.

On a worktop next to stacked boxes of ice, Dr Thomas points out the oldest cores that could be 1.5 million years old. They shine and are so clear we can see our hands through them.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5ygwd6yj28o