European prize for Antarctic research
07 Apr 2008
The European Project for Ice Coring in Antarctica (EPICA) was awarded the 1.36 million euro Descartes prize for its research into ice coring in Antarctica. Research teams from ten nations participated in the EPICA project.
The Netherlands contingent consisted of a research team from the Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Research Utrecht (IMAU) of Utrecht University, Department of Physics and Astronomy, supported by NWO Earth and Life Sciences.
With the EPICA project, which ran from 1996 until 2005, the researchers collected data on temperature and greenhouse gases for the past 800,000 years by means of ice coring in Antarctica. This climate data goes back twice as far in time as the results previously obtained by means of drill coring. The information is essential to understanding the current climate changes.
Gas bubbles
As part of the EPICA project, two holes were drilled in the Antarctic ice to a depth of 3,000 metres. The deepest ice was formed the longest time ago, thus the deeper the drilling, the further back in time researchers could see. While the ice was forming, gas bubbles were also trapped in the ice. By examining these gas bubbles, the amount of greenhouse gases from hundreds of thousands of years ago can be measured. Among other data obtained as a result of the EPICA project, researchers have found that the concentration of greenhouse gas in the atmosphere over the last 650,000 years has never been as high as it is now.
Descartes Prize
The Descartes Prize for Collaborative, Transnational Research is awarded annually to teams in which multiple countries cooperate to conduct outstanding research. The results of the EPICA project combine the work of scientists from ten European nations and their expertise in the various fields of ice core research. The participating nations are: Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and Great Britain. The award presentation of the Descartes Prize is available for viewing.
NWO – Netherlands Polar Programme
The EPICA project fell within the Dutch Polar Programme (NPP), a research programme of the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) (Earth and Life Sciences Division). With the Polar Programme, the NWO hopes to strengthen the Netherlands’ research position in the Polar regions. Polar research has now been given an extra stimulus through the International Polar Year. Since EPICA, diverse follow-up studies have been set up, such as the North Greenland Eemian Ice Drilling project (NEEM), in which researchers are drilling for ice samples in northern Greenland.
Focus areas: Earth and Sustainability
Utrecht University has organised its top-level research into fifteen focus areas, which are intended to promote high-quality research and contribute to solving major problems in society. The study described above falls under the category 'Earth and Sustainability', where research is conducted into many of the Earth's processes and how they relate to the countless dangers threatening life on Earth. This category also includes research on climate, energy, and sustainability and nanotechnologies.