Engines breathing life into the desolate Antarctic tundra, a red and white Twin Otter aircraft landed beside the Allan Hills, skis gliding over blue ice. 9,403 miles from home, Princeton University Professor of Geosciences John Higgins descended into no man’s land. This was the Princeton crew’s sixth season on the ice – they were no longer strangers to the land. And yet, as they trekked through the barren landscape, little did they know that beneath their very own feet waited the answer to what Higgins would later call “a career-long quest to find Earth’s oldest ice.”
For Higgins, it was the expedition that would change everything. During the team’s seven weeks on the tundra, they unearthed the oldest ice ever recorded. There it was: a one-million-year-old key to the past and future, quite literally in the palm of their hands.
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Questions like this, says Higgins, are what “drive the curiosity of climate scientists.” And when it comes to probing for answers, there’s no better place to start than on Antarctica’s frozen landscape. Ice, explains Higgins, traps gases such as carbon dioxide and methane – and what’s more, it preserves them remarkably well. Thus, “quality” ice samples can provide geologists like Higgins with a window into the past – and a peek at what future climate conditions could look like if greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise. “Ice cores,” says Higgins, “are seminal for understanding humans’ role in climate systems and how changes in CO2 affect changes in climate.” By studying their one-million-year-old ice core sample, for instance, the Princeton team was able to confirm a directly proportional relationship between atmospheric CO2 and Antarctic temperatures – a finding that proves crucial in discussions of climate