To learn about the future of Earth’s climate we can look to the past, and o
ne of the best ways to do that is with samples drilled from deep ice cores. Now, scientists have dated what may be the world’s oldest ice core, with some sections potentially preserving samples as old as 5 million years.
The natural preservation ability of ice is dialed up to 11 in places like Antarctica, where tiny trapped air bubbles can capture pristine samples of the Earth’s atmosphere from thousands or even millions of years ago. Markers like carbon dioxide concentrations can be cross-examined with other ancient records to get a deeper understanding of what the climate was like in the distant past, and how things have changed.
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