The newly named Ice Drilling and Coring Service will be based at the UW-Madison's Space Science and Engineering Center and will be managed by UW researcher Robert Paulos. It covers all National Science Foundation ice coring and drilling projects at high latitudes and high altitudes, which include polar areas such as Antarctica and Greenland and high mountain ranges, according to Charles Bentley, the UW emeritus professor who will serve as the project's principal investigator.
Scientists study ice cores to look for records of the Earth's past climate.
They examine layers of snow and traces of dust that are laid down in yearly cycles and tiny ice bubbles in which air has been trapped for thousands of years. According to the Web site of the National Ice Core Laboratory in Lakewood, Colo., ice cores contain more information that any other natural recorder of climate information, such as tree rings or sediment layers. Certain ice cores can hold a detailed climate record going back hundreds of thousands of years. Bentley is a glaciologist who has made more than 15 trips to Antarctica and Greenland, dating to 1956. Co-principal investigator will be Robert Morse, a UW physicist.