Precipitation apparently doubled in only a few years. So far, no one fully understands why. But the Greenland findings strikingly showed the possibility of vast and very rapid rearrangements in the interaction of ocean and atmosphere system. The researchers are drilling where the ice is nearly 100,000 years old. That makes it comparable in age to the cores extracted from Greenland.
Scientists are eager to see how the two compare.
One such meltdown may have occurred as recently as 125,000 years ago. And we're already warmer than during that period. As of last month, the drilling crews came a lot closer to answering that ominous question. The 110-foot drill rig at Siple Dome finally hit bedrock at 1,004 meters. At that depth, the pressure on the ice exceeds 1,000 pounds per square inch, and extracting pieces of it is a delicate business.