Credit: CNR, Ca Foscari University/Riccardo SelvaticoAs part of the Ice Memory effort, PSI researchers, with associates from the University of Fribourg and Ca Foscari University of Venice as well as the Institute of Polar Sciences of the Italian National Research Council (CNR), evaluated ice cores drilled in 2018 and 2020 from the Corbassière glacier at Grand Combin in the canton of Valais. Next they want to analyse to what level the signatures of organic substances in the ice are also affected.Ice Memory: Ice Core Sanctuary in AntarcticaAnother reason Schwikowski is interested in this is because, together with other ice core specialists from around the world, she is involved in the initiative led by the Ice Memory Foundation. There the PSI group, together with the Ice Memory Foundation partners, was in fact able to obtain an ice core with the signature still intact the following year.
Credit: CNR, Ca Foscari University/Riccardo SelvaticoAs part of the Ice Memory effort, PSI scientists, with associates from the University of Fribourg and Ca Foscari University of Venice as well as the Institute of Polar Sciences of the Italian National Research Council (CNR), analyzed ice cores drilled in 2018 and 2020 from the Corbassière glacier at Grand Combin in the canton of Valais. A contrast of the two sets of ice cores released in Nature Geoscience reveals: Global warming has actually made at least this glacier unusable as a climate archive.Reliable info about the past environment and air pollution can no longer be obtained from the Corbassière glacier in the Grand Combin massif, because alpine glacier melting is progressing more rapidly than formerly assumed. Next they desire to analyse to what level the signatures of natural substances in the ice are likewise affected.Ice Memory: Ice Core Sanctuary in AntarcticaAnother factor Schwikowski is interested in this is because, together with other ice core experts from around the world, she is included in the effort led by the Ice Memory Foundation.” Race Against TimeIt is to be feared that this is also the case with other glaciers around the world that have yet to be tested as part of Ice Memory.In the Alps, besides the Col du Dôme glacier on Mont Blanc at 4,250 meters, where the task team initially drilled in 2016, there is only Colle Gnifetti on the Italian-Swiss border, which is even greater at 4,450 meters and for that reason chillier than the Grand Combin glacier. There the PSI team, together with the Ice Memory Foundation partners, was in fact able to obtain an ice core with the signature still undamaged the following year.