Scientists braved the driest, coldest, and windiest environment on Earth to explore the oldest ice in Antarctica, but the effort was worth it.
Scientists are looking for samples of the oldest ice ever discovered, which could help us better understand climate change.
Once researchers have collected ice samples, scientists examine them to understand what the climate was like hundreds of thousands of years ago.
Bubbles in ice trap greenhouse gases
When snow falls, the gas is trapped in tiny bubbles from the day it falls.
The snow in Antarctica never melts because it's so cold there.
The ice was piled up layer by layer, and there were a lot of bubbles in it.
Scientists then measure the amount of greenhouse gases trapped in these bubbles.
This allows them to reconstruct how the climate changed in the distant past.
The oldest surviving ice cores date back 800,000 years.
Scientists have analysed ice cores over time and have shown that levels of carbon dioxide, the main driver of climate change, are rising and falling.
This level rose dramatically after the Industrial Revolution and then continued to rise every year, which further warmed our planet.