The first season of the international drilling project NEEM
(North Greenland Eemian Ice Drilling) in northwestern Greenland
was completed on Aug. 20. A research team, with the participation of the Alfred
Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in the Helmholtz Association,
has drilled an ice core of 5,767 feet in length on the Greenland
inland ice within 110 days. It is expected to contain data on climate history
of about 38,000 years. The oldest ice comes from a period when the Greenland
climate was characterized by strong temperature fluctuations – an average of 50
degrees F to 59 degrees F within a
few centuries. The drilling is to be continued in the coming years to gain
information on the last interglacial period, about 120,000 years to 130,000
years ago.
Research institutes from 14 nations are participating in the
research project, which has been running since 2007: Denmark,
the United States,
France, Sweden,
the Netherlands,
Japan, Great
Britain, Germany,
South Korea, Switzerland,
China, Belgium,
Iceland and Canada.
NEEM is one of the major projects of the International Polar Year 2007-2009. It
is coordinated logistically by the Centre for Ice and Climate in Denmark.
The international team has been drilling an ice core in
northwestern Greenland since April this year. The ice
cover at the location has a magnitude of about 8,349 feet, and it is meant
to be completely drilled in the coming years to make the sought-after climate
data of about 120,000 years to 130,000 years ago accessible. The gases, trace
elements and biological substances enclosed in the ice allow the reconstruction
of climate conditions at that time. "So far, we lack detailed information
on the climate in Greenland during the last interglacial,"
explains Prof. Frank Wilhelms, glaciologist at the Alfred Wegener Institute.
"With the help of data gained from the ice core and particularly from the
comparison with data from an ice core we drilled in the Antarctic Dronning Maud
Land, we are, for the first time, able to draw conclusions on the interaction
of the climate on the northern and southern hemisphere during that time,"
Wilhelms continues.
Because the drilling in this year could be conducted so
successfully, researchers expect to obtain ice with the necessary information
on this climate period in the summer of 2010.
