ROME.– Scientists inaugurated in Antarctica the first global repository of mountain ice cores, a frozen sanctuary intended to preserve the planet’s climatic history in the face of the accelerated melting of glaciers caused by global warming.
Ice cores function as authentic time capsules, containing records of atmospheric gases, particles caccumulated pollutants and dust for thousands of years, key information to understand the evolution of the Earth’s climate.
The initiative is promoted by the Ice Memory Foundationand, a consortium of European research centers, which launched the deposit at the Concordia scientific station, located on the Antarctic Plateau, one of the coldest and most stable points on the planet.
The first stored samples come from Mont Blanc, in Francea, and from the Grand Combin glacier, in Switzerland, and were transported after a complex 50-day journey by sea and air, under strict refrigeration conditions.
The sanctuary consists of a excavated cave in a snowdrift of compacted snow five meters high, where the temperature is naturally maintained around -52 degrees Celsius, ideal conditions for long-term conservation.
According to Carlo Barbante, vicepresident of Ice Memorythis reserve will allow future generations of scientists to study the climate of the past using technologies that do not yet exist, guaranteeing the continuity of scientific knowledge.
Since 2000, the The world’s glaciers have lost between 2% and 39% of their volume at a regional level, and around 5% at a global scale, which puts at risk the disappearance of irreplaceable climate information.
The project plans to incorporate ice cores from at least 10 additional glaciers and move towards an international agreement that ensures the protection of these samples as scientific heritage of humanity.
