A race against time to save Alpine ice cores that record medieval mining, fires, and volcanoes

Ice cores taken from glaciers reveal the air pollution of the past, using atmospheric particles incorporated in snow that fell on the glacier and became ice. Now, scientists have extracted a record of thousands of years’ worth of air pollution from 9.5 meters of ice at the Weißseespitze glacier, close to the border between Austria and Italy. But this ice is under threat from global warming, and scientists warn that it is now a race against time to capture critical climate information locked in these glaciers before it’s gone forever.

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