Greenland ice drilling project aims to improve sea level predictions

SCIENTISTS have recovered ice that has not seen sunlight for hundreds of thousands of years from deep in the Greenland ice sheet, which it is hoped will help improve the ability to predict the speed and final height of sea-level rises. Scientists from 14 nations, the largest international ice-core effort to date, have recovered ice from the last interglacial period following five years of work under the North Greenland Eemian Ice Drilling (Neem) project. The University of Copenhagen’s professor Dorthe Dahl-Jensen led the research project. “We expect the ice to be rich in DNA and pollen that can tell us about the plants that existed in Greenland before the site became covered with ice, perhaps as long as three million years ago,” she said. “We expect our findings will increase our know­ledge on the future climate system and increase our ability to predict the speed and final height of sea level rise,” Dahl-Jensen added. The main goal of the Neem project is to learn more about the warm Eernian climate period, which occurred 115,000 to 130,000 years ago. During this period, temperatures were 2°C to 3°C warmer than at present and sea-levels around five metres higher. Dahl-Jensen said this period provides “our best analogue for future climate”.