Vostok Ice Core

Jul. 17, 2011: In the middle of last century Soviet engenieering and science was not only centered around "Sputniks" and space probes exploring "The Dark Side of the Moon". In 1957 the Vostok Research Station was established in Antarctica, on a remote, dry, windy located place 3500 m. above sea level with temperatures dropping to −89.2 °C, and a midwinter night of 80 days. Adapting to life on the station took humans weeks and months, experiencing headaches, nose bleedings, arthritis and weight loss. Ice core drilling started in the 1970's and had in 1990 reached a depth of 2500m., stopping in 1996 at 3623 m. in fear of contaminating "Lake Vostok", a liquid freshwater lake lying 4000 m. below the ice sheet.
From ice core samples the Vostok team started mapping the climate and conditions on earth as it were thousands of years ago, by studying trapped air bubbles, dust and oxygen isotopes in the ice layers. For many years other researchers and institutions has followed up with other drillings on Antarctica and Greenland, and data of climate from as long as 800.000 years back has been extracted. Bess Koffman is member of the US Western Antarctic Ice Sheet Team and one of the scientists now doing research both on the WAIS station on Antarctica and at Maine University.

Blogger Grrlscientist has a keen interest in biology and after watching Bess Koffman on YouTube he invited her to write a guest blog article. She accepted, and here she down to earth explain a lot about her work on ice cores. Indeed I got a kind of shock when she in her article for a more profound understanding of how to deduce temperature from oxygen isotopes provide a link to the "Niels Bohr Institute" in Copenhagen and found this institution conduct research on Greenland ice core samples.
Physicist Jim Al-Khalili, presenter of the well known BBC documentary series "Atom" and "Chemistry - A Volatile History" spent educative years at "Niels Bohr Institute", in his series more than once re-visiting this old institute as it through time have played significant roles in the history of physics and chemistry, Al-Khalili always memorising his old workplace with joy and respect.
WHAT MY THOUGHTS ARE: I read blogs and other discussions on climate on the net but almost never participate myself as more often than not discussions on how climate have varied through time end up in some sort of high tension blurry mess. In contrast Koffman here present unison and almost indisputable evidence on how temperature and atmospheric CO2 did vary, based on results from frontline institutions and reason - the same reason we rely on if in need of intensive care, transport, clean water or affordable food. Objecting to Koffman would probably not favor any academic career, and I do not understand the tense and prominent skepticism on this subject.