UW’s Eric Steig (left) and lead driller Jay Johnson of the University of Wisconsin shake hands at the geographic South Pole after completing the core Jan. 22. Since the ice sheet moves, this marker has to be placed each year.
Eric Steig/University of Washington
UW’s Eric Steig (left) and lead driller Jay Johnson of the University of Wisconsin shake hands at the geographic South Pole after completing the core Jan. 22. Since the ice sheet moves, this marker has to be placed each year.

This January — high summer at the South Pole — a University of Washington glaciologist helped lead a project that surpassed its goal to drill the first deep ice core at the planet’s southernmost tip, providing material to help solve a climate puzzle.

Eric Steig, a UW professor of Earth and space sciences, returned to Seattle this month after being chief scientist for the final stretch of the National Science Foundation-funded effort at the Antarctic station.

“We had a very, very successful field season,” Steig wrote as the team finished up on Jan. 22.

Researchers with the South Pole Ice Core project had planned to drill 1,500 meters (0.9 miles) down to reveal 40,000 years of climate history at this unique location, which is on the East Antarctic Ice Sheet but gets buffeted with snow from the stormier West Antarctic Ice Sheet. The team exceeded its goal, piercing more than 1,750 meters (1.1 miles) into the ice to extract a core that extends back about 50,000 years.

Read more at UW Today »