What is ice column drilling ?

Answer 1

Ice column drilling is a technique of taking ice core samples, typically in Antarctica or Greenland. These ice core samples are used to provide temperature reconstructions of the past.

A recent study of ice cores from both Greenland and Antarctica show some interesting results. The ice cores from Antarctica show temperatures swings almost 3*C above and below current temperature over the last 10,000 years. In addition, many of these swings were at a much greater rate than the current warming trend. The Greenland ice cores show that Greenland was warmer than present for MOST of the last 10,000 years. Global warming fanatics will typically ignore the data found from these cores because it does not fit their agenda

Answer 2

Ice cores are samples of ice obtained by boring a hole deep into the ice using a device similar to an electric drill only the drill bit is hollow and allows a long cylindrical piece of ice to be extracted. The actual process is much more complicated than simply drilling a hole and requires the use of sophisticated machinery and skilled operatives.

These different samples of ice can be analysed (usually oxygen and hydrogen isotope analysis) and this indicates what the climate was like in the past.

Each season snow falls, under it's own weight and the force of gravity it becomes compressed into ice, over many years these layers of ice build up, in this respect it's a bit like the annual rings that you get in a tree trunk.

Ice cores are taken in various locations around the world where the temperature never gets above freezing, including the polar regions, Greenland and mountain ranges. Because of this thousands of layers of ice form one on top of another and compact into a single mass of ice.

The longest ice core sample so far extracted is over 3km (2 miles) long and comes from Concordia in Antarctica, a place where the temperature rarely gets above -40°C.

Because several ice cores are taken from different locations around the world we can compare the different results which gives a more accurate picture of the past climate. Using ice core analysis we can reconstruct the climate for the last 800,000 years.

Answer 3

You must be talking about how they get the ice core samples they use to analyze for temperature, CO2, etc. for years past data.

They use a very long drill pipe that is like a tube with cutting edges on the end. The rotate it and push it down through the ice. When they pull it out, they have a column of ice with ice at the bottom that was maybe formed a thousand years ago.

Answer 4

When a tree is cut down, we can see what are called "tree rings" which indicate how healthy, or unhealthy, successive growing seasons.

When we look at the sides of a cavern, we can see geology from long ago.

Ice column drilling is a form of this kind of research. We can examine what got frozen from a long time ago geologically, to learn about the composition of water and atmosphere from long ago.

This is a form of weather archelogy, figuring out what the weather must have been a long time ago, from evidnece left various ways.