It was a difficult task to drill thousands of feet through a thick layer of
ice, but the soldiers enjoyed that about it.
Taking ice cores for scientific research provided as the ideal disguise for
their true goal, Project Iceworm, which involved hiding nuclear weapons
beneath the ice sheet of Greenland.
The initiative, which was undertaken at the height of the Cold War, did not
provide the outcomes the army had hoped for. But by the time they
gave up on it in 1967, researchers had amassed enough ice cores to support their research into
Greenland's historic climate.
Scientists also removed 12 feet of dirt from beneath the ice sheet in
addition to the ice. The sediment cores were labeled, put away in a number
of cookie jars, and left unattended because the majority of scientists were
mainly concerned with the ice.
similar to the frozen bag of peas at the back of your freezer.
That is, until Danish researchers
rediscovered the sediment cores in 2018 and sent them to University of Vermont geologist Paul Bierman. There,
Andrew Christ, a doctoral candidate for Bierman, discovered some surprising
things: indications of life.
It was tremendously surprised, remarked Christ, to learn that Greenland's
ice had just melted.
The first find was made
more than two years ago, but the date the country's ice sheet disappeared is just now being
determined by the experts. The findings were released last week in
Science by the group of 21 experts.
According to their report, Greenland's ice sheet disintegrated just 416,000
years ago, and sea levels were between five and twenty feet higher than they
were when the sheet was frozen. According to the experts, this indicates
that the existing ice sheet is significantly more susceptible to global
warming than previously believed.
"The ancient frozen soil from beneath Greenland's ice sheet warns of
trouble ahead," stated Bierman and his co-author Tammy Rittenour in The
Conversation.
less resistant to warmth
It appears that the melting started far sooner than experts had
anticipated. According to earlier estimations, the thawing had place at some
point in the last million years, which is a large time range.
The Climate Change Resource Center claims that the Earth naturally
experiences warmer and colder phases. If we go back 416,000 years, we were
living in a warmer era.
As a result of measuring the amount of gases in the atmosphere by examining
the molecules that were frozen in the samples, the researchers are confident
that this warmer era was brought on by regular cycles.
According to their findings, greenhouse gas levels were far lower than they
are now, Christ told Insider.
Therefore, since the country's ice sheet is more susceptible to temperature
fluctuations than scientists initially believed, according to Christ, it
follows that the natural, mild warming caused the ice to melt. The ice sheet
is likely going to be sensitive to the changes we've made to our climate,
according to what he and Bierman found.
The Greenland ice sheet will entirely melt in the ensuing centuries due to
the climate problem, according to the researchers. "It won't take place
tomorrow. But as time goes on, it will happen more quickly, according to
Bierman.
According to the newspaper, this will result in an increase in sea level of
five to twenty feet or more. What kind of damage would that volume of water
cause, say, to the island of Manhattan or a city like Miami?
Bierman demonstrated the effects to Insider using the
sea level rise viewer
provided by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Streets, then blocks, then neighborhoods are being eaten away by the ocean.
He added: "Imagine if the water rises higher than that. The viewer maxes out
at ten feet."
