Scientists are gathering in Tallahassee, Florida, next week to chew over some dramatic climate findings. What they have discovered below the ice in West Antarctica, they say, will provide important new clues about where the world's weather may be heading. While they are not revealing everything before their workshop begins, they have already seen evidence that at times in the not-so-distant past there was no ice at all where they recently drilled through the Ross Ice Shelf.
This shelf is 85m thick and the largest floating ice shelf on the planet. The scientists drilled through it and into the seabed. What they have pulled up is a "remarkable" and "unprecedented" record of earthly climate change stretching back 12 million years. At 1284m the core is deeper than ever drilled before on the Antarctic margin. What surprises and intrigues them, says Dr Tim Naish, a New Zealander and one of the project's chief scientists, is the appearance of sudden change from glacial to ocean conditions.
Twelve million years of weather - 28 Apr 2007 - NZ Herald: New Zealand and International Environment News
29-Apr-2007, 08:00
Antarctic ice clue to weather 
