Ice Core

climate science · ancient ice · polar regions · geology

Frozen time capsules. Ice cores are long tubes of ice pulled from deep inside glaciers and ice sheets. Because new snow piles on top every year, the ice at the bottom is way older than the ice at the top, kind of like a layer cake where the bottom layer was baked first.

Reading the past. By studying the layers and tiny bubbles trapped inside the ice, scientists can tell what the temperature, air, and weather were like hundreds of thousands of years ago. It's like reading a detailed diary written in frozen water.

Super deep drillers. Scientists use powerful drills to bore down into ice sheets, sometimes reaching depths of over two miles below the surface. Some ice cores they pull up are nearly 800,000 years old, making them some of the oldest pieces of Earth's history we can actually touch.

Layer by layer. Each year, a new layer of snow gets added to the top of a glacier, and over time it compresses into ice. By counting these layers like tree rings, scientists can figure out exactly when different things happened in Earth's climate history.

Climate detectives. Ice cores help scientists understand how Earth's climate has changed naturally over hundreds of thousands of years, which helps them study how our climate is changing today.