Greenland ice core project

The project was managed by a Steering Committee of the University of Bern's Physics Institute, chaired by Professor Bernhard Stauffer.

[4][3] Studies of nuclear isotopes and various atmospheric constituents provided by the cores allowed the team to construct detailed records of climate change, covering the last 100,000 years.

The loss of mass of the Greenland ice sheet has been accelerating due to the effects of climate change caused by human activities.

[5] The mass loss of ice sheets and glaciers causes sea levels to rise, terrestrial albedo to decline, and patterns of ocean circulation to change.

[6] The rise in sea levels due to ice sheet glaciers’ melt would make it impossible for people to live in coastal regions.

[8] The best estimates based on the paleoclimate data show that the Greenland ice sheet is significantly reduced by even a small increase in the negative effects of climate change.

From the analysis of the oxygen isotope ratio of the GRIP core excavated in 1992, it became clear that abrupt climate change occurred in Greenland during the last glacial period.

Near the bottom of the GRIP core, oxygen isotope ratios fluctuated sharply; this was initially interpreted as an indication of repeated violent climate change during the last interglacial period in Greenland.

[2] Studies of isotopes and various atmospheric constituents in the core have provided a detailed record of climate variability reaching more than 100,000 years back in time.

Based on the sharp fluctuations of the oxygen isotope ratio near the bottom of the GRIP core, it had been hypothesized that severe climate change occurred repeatedly during the last interglacial period in Greenland.

Recent studies have raised questions about evaluating the relationship between temperature and Delta-O-18 during the Holocene in view of the elevation changes in the ice cap at the GISP2 site.

[19] The fact that the Greenland core remained stable during the temperature rise suggests that the Antarctic ice sheet shrank during the final interglacial period and contributed significantly to the increase in sea level.

The GRIP logistics were managed by what is now called Centre for Ice and Climate at the Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, Denmark.