Ice Cores and What They Tell Us About the History of the Earth and Life
To determine how the climate of the Earth has changed over time, scientists often check out for the oldest whiffs of our atmosphere. According to research, ice cores from the polar regions contain the records of variations in the climatic conditions from the ancient times. Ice cores are ice cylinders which have been drilled from glaciers and ice sheets. The layers found in the ice cores correspond to years since the oldest is usually at the bottom while the youngest is at the top. The Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets have vast, high plateaus which allow snows to accumulate in an orderly manner. Through drilling into glacier and ice sheets, the scientists are capable of determining the past behavior of the atmosphere and its composition. Such information enables scientists to explain why there were changes in the previous climatic conditions and also predict the possible changes in future (Williams, 34). Ice cores are not only essential for environmental knowledge but also for cultures and politics. How does the ice cores illustrate the history of the Earth and human life?
Since the 1950s, there have been lots of efforts in drilling the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets, as well as the mountain glaciers, intending to retrieve ice cores. Glaciers and ice sheets are formed from the accumulation of snow that has not melted fully and thereby transformed into ice. High rates of the mass of the snow offer an excellent resolution of time, while the bubbles in the ice core help in the preservation of actual samples of the ancient atmosphere of the world. By analyzing the ice cores, scientists get to understand about glacial-interglacial cycles, climatic stability, and varying atmospheric carbon dioxide levels. Every time a snowfall, a different layer of ice is formed on the glacier, making it possible for the geoscientists to identify the successive layers (Conrad). The trapped gases and ice offer information about the structure of the glacier, surface temperature, growth rate, physical mechanics, time of formation, atmospheric contents and temperatures during the time of its fall. For the past 800,000 years, scientific research has shown the linkage between atmospheric chemical substances such as the concentration of carbon dioxide and the average temperature of the globe (Antonello, et al. 181- 203). According to LeGrande, the ice layers trap dust and other aerosols in the atmosphere, as they remain intact in the glaciers, those particles stay after which they are used as physical shreds of evidence of past global activities such as eruptions associated with volcanic activities (Svensson et al. 21).
The discussions about ice cores have led to a significant transformation in how individuals understand human time, future time, and earth time. In as much as Earth has undergone various cycles, the ice cores have helped in recasting its history and consequently giving a revelation of the unpredictable and turbulent past. It is through such information that scientists have been able to reconstruct the ancient climate of Earth. On the other hand, the presence of greenhouse gas emissions also illustrates the existence of human life history and time in the ice cores. Additionally, the ability of ice cores to help in the prediction of future climatic conditions is what reveals the future time aspect. Thus, ice cores not only aid in understanding the climatic history of the Earth but also to unravel the history of human life.
Through the economic history of the rise and fall of the empire of Romans, scientists discovered the history of human life in the Greenland ancient ice. The growth of the roman empire required an increase in the amount of silver both for weapons and silver. This meant that silver was being mined in this empire and processed under high temperatures to turn them into their desired materials. The process of heating silver led to the spread of lead in the atmosphere, and during the era of their prosperity, the amounts of lead were more compared to the hardship times. The lead particles in the atmosphere were then trapped in the snow, and during its fall those particles ended up in the glaciers. Ice cores extracted from these glaciers enabled the scientists to understand the economic status of the Romans due to the analysis of the lead pollution. It is through the process of mining and smelting that lead particles were released into the atmosphere, which enabled the tracking of human history in this region (Science Museum).
The primary purpose of ice drilling has always been to understand the history of the Earth. Ice cores entail records of our planet from as early as eight hundred thousand years ago. The ice cores offer not only years but also aid in the generation of specific temporal Earth textures, identification of rhythms and cycles, asynchrony and synchrony (Brooke et al. 200). Data collected from the ice cores by the mid-1980s showed a high Holocene resolution and also gave hints on the Eemian era. Despite the ice cores showing the regular glacial-interglacial cycles, more so the Greenland Ice Core Project, it also revealed a turbulent record of abrupt climatic variations which was not covered in the initial theories. During the analysis of the Eemian Interglacial and the Younger Dryas, researchers looked into the Greenland ice cores extracted between 1989 and 1993 discovered that ice ages could turn on and off within few years and not necessarily on a decade scale.
In as much as the asynchrony emerged from ice cores on the tropical and temperate high-mountain, the records and interpretations of both the Antarctic and Greenland ice cores unleashed a strong temporality of Earth. The ice cores had implanted the cycles of the ice ages, which seemed stable and permanent along with the warm and cold rhythms. Even though there had been abrupt transitions from the cold to warm periods that were likely to discontinue the cycles. The ice cores are considered pillars of the contemporary vision of an actual global surrounding. This was evident through the synchronization of the records of both the southern and northern hemispheres. The assumptions of the Earth having a long history were confirmed realistic during the early nineteenth century through Earth science research. Ice cores deal with the Earth during the presence of human beings and not before the existence of humans, and that is why it is easy to dig out the history of both human and the planet itself from ice extracts.
Ice cores not only reveal the past of Earth’s climatic and atmospheric history but also entwine human and natural history to come up with specific temporalities of both human civilization and species. Besides, it is essential to make ice cores significant so that the public can be oriented on its scientific value of interpolating events from human history and prehistory. However, it is only a few societies which have been enrolled in talks concerning ice cores. The earliest studies on ice cores illustrated the effects of human actions, for instance, the testing of weapons. Glaciologists also found out that the radioactive falling out of tritium from explosions caused by the hydrogen bombs left a discernible layer on the ice. Initially, various scientists have identified a connection between warming and carbon dioxide. James Dyson, in his book, “The World of Ice,” asked: “Are our factories smokestacks and the automobile exhaust pipes seriously increasing the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere?” this answers can only be found in an ice core.
The presence of human life in the ice cores is beyond the identity of the global anthropogenic effects. An almost omnipresent part of the ice core discussion entails taking note of specific depths and layers of the ice as they are directly related to events in the history of humanity. For instance, according to Dyson, a depth of one hundred and sixty-five feet was a representation of a snowfall that occurred during the civil war in America. Below it, there was a snow that had fallen when the men of Washington were suffering through winter at Valley Forge. Similarly, the ice core displayed at the American Museum of Natural History has a correlating description that refers to the smelting of lead by the Romans, the Revolution of Industries, and the 1974 US Clean Air Act. There have been strong claims about the history of human life and climate from the research that surrounds ice cores. Climate data collected from the Greenland ice cores has been used by both journalists and scientists on their quest to understand why the Viking settlements that were established in Greenland during the tenth century collapsed. Despite the ice core records providing crucial evidence about the environmental factors such as drought, a combination of other factors including religious beliefs, power struggles, persistent warfare, and population density, could also lead to collapse.
Ice cores contain clear and identifiable signals of the effects of humans on the global environment, which were demonstrated through carbon dioxide levels, atomic fallout, and lead. This means that ice cores tell much about human life as they do about glaciers and climates, and as a result, people and climate are closely tied by ice and synchronized in some way. Additionally, the representation of climate as posing both singular and potent effects on species and societies creates a significant sensibility not only on the history of human life but also on Earth. Just as the ice cores suggest that the cryosphere and polar regions and cryosphere represent Earth, it also states about human time by offering a narrow conceptualization of people and their history.
Investigating the temporalities associated with ice cores injects new perspectives into global environmental history and humanities. Scientists, along with environmentalists have enabled ice cores to speak to a very long period and history of both Earth and Homo sapiens. One of the totemic components of contemporary history has always been the creation of a global unity sense. The photographs were taken by the NASA astronauts aimed at speaking to the unity, vitality, and fragility of Earth within the vast outer space void. But these iconic photographs and their emphasis on one whole Earth suggests timelessness. The interest of scientists was to demonstrate how ice cores have universalized and created one timeline or temporality for Earth. In as much as the ice cores provide information about the past climatic conditions, sometimes they are used to reflect upon and predict the future. The fundamental motivation behind the drilling of the ice core is to have an understanding of the previous cycle and dynamics so that the future climate conditions can also be foretold. A lot of progress has been made by the scientists more so on the correspondence of greenhouse gases and temperature. When ice cores are continually used by the scientists in their quest to predict the future, they are more likely to discover greater things besides weather and human life.
In conclusion, ice cores tend to offer an unmediated window onto the history of Earth. However, they have also been associated with global political and scientific discussions about the history of humanity and the future. Ice cores, considered as experimental objects, have been used by different stakeholders in their construction of specific narratives about the past while foretelling inevitable disastrous future relying on the current inaction. Due to the quantitative nature of the climate records and credibility of the Earth scientists who drilled the ice cores, the history is deemed to be accurate. Consequently, ice cores have become powerful objects and referral documents in climate-change discourses and predictions. From this article, the revelation of ice cores on the history of Earth and life have been clearly illustrated. Also, it is upon individuals to understand that ice cores are meant to offer regulations on our way out of the climate crisis besides the revealing of histories.
Works Cited
Antonello, Alessandro, and Mark Carey. “Ice cores and the temporalities of the global environment.” Environmental Humanities 9.2 (2017): 181-203.
Brook, Edward J., and Christo Buizert. “The Antarctic and global climate history viewed from ice cores.” Nature 558.7709 (2018): 200-208.
Conrad-Stoller, Jessica. “Core Questions: An Introduction to Ice Cores.” NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, (2017).
Science Museum. “Can ice cores tell us about human history?” Richmond, VA (2018).
Svensson, Anders, et al. “Volcanic synchronization of abrupt climate change in Greenland and Antarctic ice cores during the last glacial period.” Geophysical Research Abstracts. Vol. 21. 2019.
Williams, Jack. “Ice Cores Reveal Climate History Clues.” Weatherwise 69.5 (2016): 34-41.