Source: Terra Nova Daily
An international team of scientists, including researchers from Binghamton University, State University of New York, has launched a critical mission to uncover geological records from the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. This effort, part of the Sensitivity of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet to 2 C (SWAIS2C) project, aims to deepen understanding of how the ice sheet may respond to global warming.
Photo: Joe McDougall / Antarctica New Zealand
Analyses will help to reveal how far the West Antarctic Ice Sheet retreated in the past — and what it might do in the future.
Scientists have just got their hands on a 228-metre (748-foot) core sample from the muddy bedrock beneath West Antarctica’s chunky ice sheets. Inside the record-breaking sample, they discovered fossils of marine organisms that date from a time when this area was an open, ice-free ocean.