Helicopters that can’t land. Equipment hauled up glacial slopes by hand. Subzero nights battling gales that flatten tents. For teams drilling ice cores on Mount Everest – known as Qomolangma in Tibetan – these challenges aren’t anomalies; they’re Tuesday.
\"We’re hunting time capsules,\" says glaciologist Xu Baiqing, who has spent two decades extracting ice samples from Earth’s highest peaks. Each tubular ice core – some stretching 800 meters long – contains bubbles of ancient atmosphere, trapped pollutants, and dust layers that reveal climate patterns spanning 10,000 years.
But why endure such extremes? Xu compares it to solving a planetary puzzle: \"Every core adds data points – showing how industrial activity, wildfires, or volcanic eruptions altered ecosystems. This helps model our climate future.\" Recent collaborations between Himalayan and Antarctic research teams have uncovered surprising parallels in atmospheric changes across hemispheres.
For young scientists entering the field, the draw isn’t just discovery. \"It’s visceral – handling ice formed when pharaohs ruled Egypt,\" says a 28-year-old team member. \"You’re literally touching history.\" As climate urgency grows, these frozen archives become critical roadmaps for policy decisions – making every frigid, breathless hour on the mountain count.
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What motivates a scientist to spend their life extracting ice cores?
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