SWAIS2C Season 3 Drilling preparation

Season 3 of the ICDP SWAIS2C drilling project in Antarctica: before drilling can begin the team needs to melt a hole through the 500 m ice sheet – for this they need a supply of hot water, and luckily there’s no shortage of a crucial ingredient for that - snow.

During this season the ICDP SWAIS2C drilling project has an ‘on-ice’ team of 29 scientists, drillers, engineers and Antarctic field specialists embarking on the project’s attempt to drill for a 200 m sediment core from the bedrock deep beneath 500 m of ice at the Crary Ice Rise on the Ross Ice Shelf. The aim is to understand the response to climate warming in the past, and the meaning for Earth’s future 🌏 Response of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) to projected warming remains a significant uncertainty in sea level rise projections. SWAIS2C focus on understanding past and current drivers, mechanisms and feedbacks that influence retreat of ice sheets, to reduce uncertainty in numerical model projections of future changes.

ICDP project ℹ️ www.icdp-online.org/projects/by-continent/polar-regions/antarctica/swais-2c-antarctica/

SWAIS2C  ℹ️ www.swais2c.aq

ℹ️  SWAIS2C media release