Interview: Unlocking Secrets from Ice in a Warming Antarctic Region

Earlier this year, climatologist Ellen Mosley-Thompson led an expedition to drill into glacial ice on the Antarctic Peninsula, one of the world’s fastest-warming regions. Working for 42 days in frigid temperatures at 6,500 feet, Mosley-Thompson and her six-person team encountered numerous hardships and difficulties, including the loss of ice drills, before eventually boring 1,462 feet to bedrock. Mosley-Thompson’s work is part of a larger research project analyzing the impact of the spectacular collapse of the Larsen B Ice Shelf in 2002 and understanding that event in the context of Antarctica’s climate history. In an interview with Yale Environment 360, Mosley-Thompson, director of the Byrd Polar Research Center at Ohio State University, explains what the Antarctic ice cores may reveal about the precipitous warming of the Antarctic Peninsula and what it’s like working in the world’s swiftly melting ice zones.
Read the interview