Last Updated:
February 28, 2007

GCRIO Program Overview

Library 
Our extensive collection of documents.

Privacy Policy

Archives of the
Global Climate Change Digest
A Guide to Information on Greenhouse Gases and Ozone Depletion
Published July 1988 through June 1999

FROM VOLUME 7, NUMBER 1, JANUARY 1994

NEWS...

• NEW ICE CORE QUESTIONS

Item #d94jan109

Results from a Greenland ice core (GRIP), reported last summer by European scientists, indicated that the interval between the last two ice ages had large, sudden temperature swings, suggesting that our present interglacial climate could be subject to abrupt shifts, especially as greenhouse gases rise. (See GCCD, Sep 1993) Now analysis of a second ice core (GISP2), drilled near the European one by U.S. scientists, throws the first conclusion into question. (See Nature papers in Prof. Pubs./Gen. Int. Sci., this issue.)

The two cores agree well during the interval from the present to the start of the last ice age, but give conflicting results prior to that time, possibly because of the effects of rough terrain on the base of the ice sheet. Various interpretations of this result by scientists are discussed in Science News, p. 390, Dec. 11; Science, pp. 1818-1819, Dec. 17; Chem. Eng. News, p. 7, Dec. 20; New Scientist, p. 14, Jan. 8.