From Svalbard to a soon-to-be-realized ice archive in Antarctica; glaciers are central to climate research, but are melting faster and faster. Scientists are now racing against the clock to collect and store ice samples for future research.

Snow chemistry researcher Andrea Spolaor was not really worried. Everything was planned down to the last detail, after all. The snowmobiles were waiting at the research station in western Svalbard.  The drilling machine and its spare parts were packed, as were tent beds and food for the entire research team. He had made seventeen expeditions to Svalbard before. Nevertheless, he would soon find that there were some surprises in store once the expedition was underway.

Andrea Spolaor works at the Polar Science Institute of the Italian National Research Council in Venice. He is an expert on ice cores. Now his task was to coordinate an expedition with scientists from Norway, France, and Italy. The goal? To retrieve three 130-meter-long ice cores from one of the largest glaciers in Svalbard. He had spent months planning and now the trip was finally happening. There was a storm, and the whole landscape was white.

“We couldn’t see anything, but we set the GPS to the right coordinates. After a couple of hours on the snowmobile we arrived and were able to set up camp,” recalls Andrea Spolaor.

The researchers buried their tents in the snow on the Holtedahlfonna glacier at an altitude of 1,150 meters. The thermometer showed 20 degrees below zero, but the strong winds brought the windchill equivalent down to 40 degrees below zero. The next day the work would begin.

An arctic outpost

Around three hundred polar bears live in the Svalbard archipelago. Spitsbergen, the largest island, is home to the world’s northernmost post office, the world’s northernmost hospital and the world’s northernmost research station.

Formally, Svalbard is a part of Norway and Norwegian laws apply, but anyone from anywhere in the world is welcome to settle here and conduct business activities. No visa or residence permit is required. Even so, the population remains only 2,600 people. The archipelago consists of about 60 percent glaciers, 27% uninhabitable rocky areas and only 13% is covered with vegetation. There are no trees taller than knee height.

In many ways, Svalbard is a country in reverse. Anyone taking a walk outside the village must, according to the law, be armed with a rifle. Cat ownership is forbidden, however, in order to protect the rich bird population. Ideally, you should avoid dying as well. In fact, dying here is forbidden by another ancient law. The permafrost is so deep that bodies cannot be properly buried but perhaps this is about to change.

A frozen archive with ice

An ice drill core is a large cylindrical piece of ice that serves as a historic climate archive. Each air bubble in the ice holds a small sample of the atmosphere from the time the ice was formed.

By studying layer upon layer of ice, it is possible to draw conclusions about how the climate at the site has varied over the centuries. It is possible to see how automobiles have developed, whether volcanic eruptions took place and how carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere have changed.

This is information that today’s climate scientists are very interested in. Ice cores therefore provide an important piece of the puzzle when the UN climate panel IPCC models the future climate. The Arctic region is already severely affected by climate change. For parts of the year, the permafrost has now started to thaw and temperatures are rising faster in the Arctic than in the rest of the world; four times faster on average and even up to seven times faster in some places.

Almost all of the world’s glaciers are shrinking, and in recent years the melting has also accelerated. This will make research on glaciers and climate increasingly difficult.

The Svalbard expedition is part of an international project to make such research possible, even in the future. The Ice Memory Foundation collects, rescues and manages ice cores from glaciers around the world to preserve them for future generations of scientists.

In 2024 and 2025, a 300 square meter cave will be built under the snow in Antarctica. Called the Ice Memory Sanctuary, it will be a haven for the world’s remaining glacial ice. The idea is to build a large climate archive, much like a library. The extremely cold location has been carefully chosen, as the average temperature here is 54 degrees below zero. For parts of the year, it is as cold as 84 degrees below zero, so in other words, no cooling systems required.

Of course, at the same time, glacier research is needed here and now. That’s why Andrea Spolaor and his research team would also drill ice cores that would be transported to the university and analyzed there.

Unexpected discovery

The drilling site is similarly carefully chosen. In 2005, another research team drilled an ice core here. The plan now was to compare the new material with the old, as the glaciers have changed rapidly over the last 20 years. The researchers wanted to be able to study the change in detail. With new technology, it is also possible to perform analyses that were not possible at the time.

The first ice cores were exactly what scientists had hoped for. The drilling machine delivered meter-long ice cylinders. In order for them to be safely transported down from the glacier each core was cut in half. This made them less heavy. They were then packed into coolers made from recycled fishing nets.

The problems started at a depth of 25 meters. The drilling machine was brand new, and had been thoroughly tested in advance. The only problem was that they encountered water. A lot of water.

“We knew there was a risk that we would encounter meltwater. But we didn’t think it would be this bad,” says Andrea Spolaor.

The researchers drilled both on the edge of the glacier and on sloping terrain. During the drilling expedition in 2005, there was no water at all. This was still believed to be a site unaffected by meltwater, but they were wrong. It wasn’t long before the first drill motor broke down. Fortunately, they had four in reserve.

After two hours, they had drained three hundred liters of water from the borehole, but the water flow was still the same. By now, they had managed to drill 50 meters into the ice. Suddenly, the next drilling motor broke down on account of the high-water pressure.

“At this point, we didn’t dare to continue. We realized that we had to change location,” recalls Andrea Spolaor.

Three hundred years back in time

A few days later, the drilling dome and the associated drilling machine were moved 150 meters away. At the new drilling site, the research team was able to drill all the way down to the bedrock without encountering water. Nor did they have to drill down 130 meters as they had planned: The depth of the ice here was lower than at the first drilling site, whereby each layer in the ice cores was more compressed. It was enough to drill 74 meters to bring up the entire climate archive. They also managed to drill up a third core.

The researchers noted that the shallowest ice cores were slightly less sparkling and crystal clear than they were used to. Was this also a sign of climate change? Catherine Larose notes that it still remains to be seen. She is a researcher in microbiology at the French National Research Center. Like Andrea Spolaor, she has made many previous expeditions to Svalbard.

“I estimate we can trace at least three hundred years back in time from these cores,” shares Catherine Larose.

When the researchers finally relaxed a bit and sat back, there was another change in the weather. The extreme cold was suddenly replaced by unusually warm weather. In the camp, the temperature had risen to around zero and in large parts of Svalbard it even started to rain.

The researchers packed the precious cargo on sledges, but on the way down from the glacier they got stuck in a meltwater stream that had not been there on the way up. It took three hours to unload and move the cargo to safety. Andrea Spolaor admits that he did get a bit nervous throughout the ordeal:

“It was extremely stressful at the end. Only when the last block of ice was in the freezer was I able to relax.” After 23 days and pulling up a total of 270 meters of ice cores, the expedition was complete.

Technology is constantly evolving

The first two drill cores will be analyzed soon. Catherine Larose is responsible for transporting the cores to Europe, with their likely destination being the University of Venice. The researchers will study how much the climate in Svalbard has changed and which parameters affect the glaciers the most. Catherine Larose will conduct one of the world’s very first analyses of the microbiology of the ice cores.

“Scientists have looked at microorganisms in the ice before, but in the last 15-20 years, new DNA technology has been developed that enables completely new types of analysis. The idea is to see how the composition of microorganisms has varied with different weather patterns. I’m super excited about this, and really hope it works,” says Catherine Larose.

New storage facility in Antarctica

The third and final core will later be moved to the future ice archive in Antarctica. Carlo Barbante is professor at Italy’s Ca’ Foscari University, Director of the Polar Science Institute and Vice President of the Ice Memory Foundation.

“We are talking about the collapse of glaciers. On some glaciers in the Alps, we have lost 90% of the ice mass in a century. And most of it has happened in the last few decades,” he says.

The new drilling core storage facility will be built at an altitude of 3,200 meters, near the Concordia research base in Antarctica. While waiting for the snow cave to be completed, the ice will be stored in various cold rooms around the world.

“This is a very big project, but we need to act now. I have realized that these climate archives are literally disappearing under our feet. In thirty or fifty years, we will have completely new analytical methods to study the ice, but by then it could begone,” says Carlo Barbante.

So far, scientists from all over the world have collected ice core samples from countries such as France, Bolivia, and Russia, and the project is urgent. In just a few years, it may become too risky to stay on the Holtedahlfonna glacier in Svalbard, for example.

“This was perhaps the last chance to drill there. So, I am very grateful that we succeeded,” reflects Andrea Spolaor.

 

Photos: Ricardo Selvatico