UNIC

Old ice provides unique information on our past climate. This old ice is typically found at great depths within the Antarctic ice sheet. However, in rare zones across Antarctica, old ice resurfaces. In these so-called blue ice areas, samples are directly accessible at the surface or at shallow depth. Whereas the potential of blue ice areas is demonstrated by the recovery of multi-million-year-old ice in one area, exploring other areas in the remote continent is very challenging given the limited understanding of the (driving) factors behind the presence of old ice.

The UNIC (UNlocking Antarctica's time capsules: where to recover ancient ICe) project addresses this knowledge gap and aims to generate the first continent-wide estimates on the age of the ice in Antarctic blue ice areas, with corresponding uncertainties. The UNIC project outcomes will help guiding community efforts in prioritizing locations to search for ancient ice and constraining estimates on the past ice sheet extent. As such, the past ice sheet stability under changing climatic conditions can be contextualized, which in turn is essential for projecting the evolution of the ice sheet in a future, warmer climate.

The UNIC project is funded as junior postdoctoral fellowship by the Research Foundation – Flanders (FWO).