U of M scientist hopes ancient Antarctica ice sample offers cool climate clues

Advertisement

Advertise with us

A team of international scientists, including a University of Manitoba academic, has retrieved the world’s longest ice sample in an effort to learn about Earth’s climate hundreds of thousands of years ago.

Read this article for free:


or

Already have an account? Log in here »

To continue reading, please subscribe:

Subscribe and receive a limited-edition Free Press branded hat or tote.

Digital Subscription

One year of digital access for only $205*

  • Enjoy unlimited reading on winnipegfreepress.com
  • Read the E-Edition, our digital replica newspaper
  • Access News Break, our award-winning app
  • Play interactive puzzles

*First annual payment billed as $205.00 + GST for one year. This annual subscription will automatically renew at $233.00 + GST every 52 weeks (10% off the regular annual price of $259.35). Offer available to new and qualified returning subscribers only. Cancel any time.

To continue reading, please subscribe:

Add Free Press access to your Brandon Sun subscription for only an additional

$1 for the first 4 weeks*

  • Enjoy unlimited reading on winnipegfreepress.com
  • Read the E-Edition, our digital replica newspaper
  • Access News Break, our award-winning app
  • Play interactive puzzles
Start now

*Your next Brandon Sun subscription payment will increase by $1.00 and you will be charged $17.95 plus GST for four weeks. After four weeks, your payment will increase to $24.95 plus GST every four weeks.

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 09/01/2025 (644 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A team of international scientists, including a University of Manitoba academic, has retrieved the world’s longest ice sample in an effort to learn about Earth’s climate hundreds of thousands of years ago.

Just after Christmas from a remote site in Antarctica, the team drilled thousands of metres to reach where the ice sheet meets bedrock. The ice sample contains greenhouse gas bubbles that hold clues to climate and atmospheric history dating back more than 800,000 years.

The ice core shows a continuous record of the Earth’s climate as far back as 1.2 million years.

Dorthe Dahl-Jensen, chair of the ice core science consortium at the U of M, was part of the team to drill the 2,800-metre sample.

“We’re pretty excited about it and can’t wait to get working on (researching) it,” she said from Denmark Thursday.

The project was 10 years in the making, Dahl-Jensen said.

The team began using radars in 2014 to identify the spots likely to contain the old ice. Drilling began in 2019.

Over a period of four seasons (the team did not drill during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic), a special drill designed in Europe went through the ice sheet metre by metre to reach the bedrock.

PNRA-IPEV
                                The team of researchers who helped extract the 2,800-metre ice sample.

PNRA-IPEV

The team of researchers who helped extract the 2,800-metre ice sample.

Dahl-Jensen, her team and a broader group of scientists will soon begin extracting greenhouse gases trapped in bubbles within the ice sample, which consists of one-metre blocks that will be transported to Denmark from Antarctica in insulated foam containers.

By studying the ice and gases, researchers hope to learn about the past to help the future.

“Right now we are warming the climate because we are increasing the concentrations of greenhouse gases, and in that way we are going exactly into a climate situation that reminds very much about the climate about 1.2 million years ago,” she said. “So by looking back in time, we get a snapshot on the climate situation that might be valuable for us in understanding what’s going on right now.”

The project was coordinated by the Institute of Polar Sciences of the National Research Council of Italy and funded by the European Commission with support from national partners across Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom.

In Spring, Dahl-Jensen and a different team will undertake a similar project in Nunavut, drilling thousands of metres below the ice to retrieve cores in order to learn about what Canada’s climate once was. The analysis will eventually take place at the University of Alberta.

PNRA-IPEV
                                The ice cores storage cave in Antarctica.

PNRA-IPEV

The ice cores storage cave in Antarctica.

nicole.buffie@freepress.mb.ca

Nicole Buffie

Nicole Buffie
Multimedia producer

Nicole Buffie is a reporter for the Free Press city desk. Born and bred in Winnipeg, Nicole graduated from Red River College’s Creative Communications program in 2020 and worked as a reporter throughout Manitoba before joining the Free Press newsroom as a multimedia producer in 2023. Read more about Nicole.

Every piece of reporting Nicole produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.

Our newsroom depends on a growing audience of readers to power our journalism. If you are not a paid reader, please consider becoming a subscriber.

Our newsroom depends on its audience of readers to power our journalism. Thank you for your support.

Report Error Submit a Tip

More Stories

Convicted harasser accused of targeting old, new victims, including judge

Dean Pritchard 6 minute read Preview

Convicted harasser accused of targeting old, new victims, including judge

Dean Pritchard 6 minute read Yesterday at 5:53 PM CDT

Agnieszka Ciochon-Newton, who was sentenced to six years in prison for mercilessly harassing two people she believed had wronged her, as well as other crimes, wasted no time when her sentence ended to launch fresh attacks on victims new and old, including the judge who convicted her, court documents allege.

The 58-year-old former nurse was arrested last month after Winnipeg police “became aware that (Ciochon-Newton) was engaging in aggressive and harassing behaviours again, starting almost immediately upon the expiry of her parole conditions” on May 13, Det. Sgt Kylie Case wrote in search warrant documents obtained by the Free Press.

Ciochon-Newton is charged with seven counts of criminal harassment, two counts of uttering threats and one count each of fraud, breaking and entering, attempting to obstruct justice, intimidation of a justice official, mischief and defamatory libel. She remains in custody.

Search warrant documents say provincial court Judge Keith Eyrikson learned in late August that Ciochon-Newton had emailed CBC Manitoba days earlier and threatened him.

Read
Yesterday at 5:53 PM CDT

MPI not sleeping on ride-share fraud

Editorial 4 minute read Preview

MPI not sleeping on ride-share fraud

Editorial 4 minute read Yesterday at 2:00 AM CDT

Rust never sleeps. You may remember those words as the title of a Neil Young and Crazy Horse album from 1979. You might even recognize an even older use of the words as an advertising slogan for anti-rust paint Rust-Oleum.

Read
Yesterday at 2:00 AM CDT

Jets top line powers win over Wild

Ken Wiebe 7 minute read Preview

Jets top line powers win over Wild

Ken Wiebe 7 minute read Tuesday, Oct. 13, 2026

Cole Perfetti has made it clear he doesn’t want to get ahead of himself.

The Winnipeg Jets winger has first-hand knowledge on how humbling the NHL can be, coming off a quiet campaign as he worked his way back from a high ankle sprain.

But with the benefit of a full summer of training and a return to health, Perfetti has taken advantage of his promotion to the top line and quickly shown he belongs.

The latest proof came Tuesday, with Perfetti scoring a pair of goals — including the game-winner — in a 5-2 victory over the Minnesota Wild at Canada Life Centre.

Read
Tuesday, Oct. 13, 2026

India’s leader vexed by satirical party

Kyle Volpi Hiebert 5 minute read 2:00 AM CDT

France’s violent student uprising has captured headlines in recent weeks. Yet India’s strongman Prime Minister Narendra Modi is struggling to tame an upstart gen Z challenge of his own — and it shows no signs of slowing down.

Youth-led protests beginning on Oct. 10 paralyzed central New Delhi for several days as demonstrators called for India’s election commissioner to resign over unexplained database changes that deleted 130 million people from voter registries. Many accuse Modi’s Hindu-first ruling party of ramming through the changes for its own benefit. Mass arrests were carried out by the 25,000-plus security forces brought in to lock down the capital.

It’s just the latest headache the Cockroach movement has caused for Modi.

At a court hearing in May, India’s top judge called jobless youth “cockroaches” and “parasites” for criticizing the country on social media. His offhand comments triggered instant fury, as Indian graduates often struggle to find work in their field in an economy dominated by low-skilled sectors. Their unemployment rate is three times higher than the country’s average — 40 per cent for graduates under 25.

Star Trek star helps bring music of franchise to WSO

Conrad Sweatman 5 minute read Preview

Star Trek star helps bring music of franchise to WSO

Conrad Sweatman 5 minute read 11:54 AM CDT

John de Lancie knows a thing or two about obsessive fandoms.

“Back in the ’60s, and I certainly grew up in that, there was one fandom: sports. Those of us who read sci-fi and what have you, we were very much of a subculture, and Star Trek … provided a shade, a tent,” he says.

These days, the Hollywood actor — who reprises his iconic role as the mischievous Q in 60 Years of Star Trek & Beyond, presented by the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra tonight — is no stranger to the Trekkie circuit.

And he’ll be meeting at least a few Trekkies tonight, as the WSO’s concert delves deep into the franchise’s musical heritage and lore. 60 Years of Star Trek & Beyond weaves the famous classical themes that inspired Star Trek’s sound with music from the franchise itself, along with new compositions by Nick DiBerardino, who joins de Lancie onstage for a theatrical and philosophical back-and-forth.

Read
11:54 AM CDT

Developer ‘anxiously’ awaits judge’s decision on Granite Curling Club construction

Joyanne Pursaga 4 minute read Preview

Developer ‘anxiously’ awaits judge’s decision on Granite Curling Club construction

Joyanne Pursaga 4 minute read Tuesday, Oct. 13, 2026

The developer of a hotly debated project that would add 110 housing units to the Granite Curling Club’s parking lot has begun investigative work at the site while awaiting a judge’s decision on construction.

While some digging took place at the city-owned property last week, its developer said construction has yet to begin.

“I would call (the digging so far) investigative site work. It’s not preparing in any way for construction, other than to ensure that the reports that are required for any site have been completed,” said Jeremy Read, chief executive officer of UWCRC 2.0 Inc.

A heritage resources impact assessment will determine if the site has archeological significance. That work will check for everything from fossils to unmarked graves, said Read.

Read
Tuesday, Oct. 13, 2026