ice core, Ellen Mosley-Thompson

Exhibition Label:
"Climate Change at the Poles," Jan-2009, Kate Meyer, Jennifer Talbott, and Angela Watts
The highly magnified image is a thin section of an ice core that shows small air bubbles which can be studied to learn more about historical levels of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere.The ice core image photographed with a ruler shows stratification (or layering) in the ice. Like tree rings, these layers represent annual precipitation over time and can be used to reconstruct a climatic record encompassing the age range of the core.