Ice Core Clues: The Scientific Hunt to Save Glaciers

In a critical mission, an international team braved extreme altitudes on Tajikistan’s Kon-Chukurbashi ice cap to drill two 105-meter-long ice cores from one of the world’s only glaciers that is not melting—a phenomenon known as the “Pamir-Karakoram anomaly.”

One core is preserved in an underground sanctuary in Antarctica by the Ice Memory Foundation, while the other is being analyzed at Hokkaido University’s Institute of Low Temperature Science.

Led by Professor Yoshinori Iizuka, scientists in Sapporo are meticulously studying the ice’s layers, density, and chemical composition to reconstruct past climate and precipitation patterns.

Their urgent work aims to decode why this glacier has grown, with the hope that this knowledge can be applied to protect and potentially revive the thousands of glaciers disappearing worldwide due to climate change.