Word: eemian
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...firsthand look at such heroism this summer when I joined a team of international researchers led by Dahl-Jensen at the NEEM camp in Greenland. NEEM stands for North Greenland Eemian Ice Drilling (the acronym is Danish, as are the leaders of the project), and the scientists are digging deep into the Greenland ice--more than a mile and a half deep to be precise--to try to understand its pedigree. Depth is time, and the lower you go, the further back in history you travel. As ice formed in Greenland, year after cold year, bits of atmosphere were trapped...
NEEM is focused on the Eemian stage, a period from about 115,000 to 130,000 years ago, right before the last ice age, when the world was warm--quite warm, about 9°F hotter in Europe than it is today. Given that the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimates that temperatures could rise 3.24°F to 7.2°F over the coming century, the Eemian could offer a model for the effect such thermometer swings will have on Greenland's ice. A full climatic record of the Eemian has never been constructed, but over the next...
...understand what has happened to the earth's atmosphere--and, therefore, how our climate might change in the future--some ice-core scientists in the Arctic are training their eyes directly downward. It's an incredibly important job. It's also, as the participants in the North Greenland Eemian Ice Drilling (NEEM) project will attest, incredibly fun. Where else can you snowmobile all day across Olympic-quality piste, make modern art out of 200-year-old ice crystals and relax at "night" (the sun never sets during the arctic summer) with copious amounts of Carlsberg beer delivered...
...year the snow fell are trapped in layers of frost, and when the ice is brought back to the surface, scientists can analyze the ancient atmosphere and discover the temperature and carbon dioxide concentration of Greenland's air, say, 115,000 years ago. That's the end of the Eemian geologic period, the warm era before the earth's last Ice Age (which ran until about 11,700 years ago). We know the planet was some 3° to 5°C (5° to 9°F) warmer during the Eemian period than it is today, and by analyzing the NEEM ice core...
...core science is incredibly important, because it can help us understand how climate changed in the past - and how it might change in the future. It's also, as the participants in the North Greenland Eemian Ice Drilling (NEEM) project will tell you, incredibly fun. Where else can you snowmobile all day across some of the finest piste in the world, carve 200-year-old ice cores in a polar cave that would make Superman swoon, and relax at night (night being relative, since the sun never sets during the Arctic summer) with copious amounts of Carlsberg beer delivered...