Terrifying': Scientists dig deep for missing piece of climate puzzle

This weekend, a crucial but barely heralded scientific mission will come to an end in a remote part of Antarctica.

David Etheridge, CSIRO lead scientist on the Hydroxyl
project, at Law Dome laboratory in Antarctica.CREDIT:

A team of seven Australian and American researchers will conduct the last extraction of ancient air from ice cores drilled as deep as 240 metres.

They hope to reveal answers to some fundamental questions about how our atmosphere is coping with our soaring emissions of greenhouse gases.

“We’re trying hard not to screw it up," Peter Neff, a glaciologist at the University of Washington, tells the Sun-Herald and Sunday Age from behind the wheel of a tracked snow vehicle at his icy basecamp.

Read the story from The Age by Peter Hannam - “‘Terrifying': Scientists dig deep for missing piece of climate puzzle.”