Scientists fly glacial ice to south pole to unlock secrets of global warming
In a few weeks, researchers will begin work on a remarkable scientific project. They will drill deep into the Col du Dime glacier on Mont Blanc and remove a 130 metre core of ice. Then they will fly it, in sections, by helicopter to a laboratory in Grenoble before shipping it to Antarctica. There the ice core will be placed in a specially constructed vault at the French-Italian Concordia research base, 1,000 miles from the south pole.
The Col du Dime ice will become the first of several dozen other cores, extracted from glaciers around the world, that will be added to the repository over the next few years. The idea of importing ice to the south pole may seem odd - the polar equivalent of taking coals to Newcastle - but the project has a very serious aim, researchers insist.
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