STORY – Launched in 2015 by a team of scientists from Grenoble, the Ice Memory program collects ice cores from all over the world, “recording tapes” of climate history. The fate of these 100-meter-long cylinders raises many questions of logistics and governance.
It is a scientific program like few others, so dizzying are its stakes and its horizons. Initiated in 2015 by a team of glaciologists from Grenoble, the Ice Memory project aims to safeguard, for centuries to come, ice archives taken from glaciers around the world by storing them in a sanctuary in Antarctica. Objective: to preserve for future generations this heritage and the information it contains, before it disappears, carried away by the melting of the glaciers linked to global warming. A scientific challenge that raises a number of logistical and governance issues to make these archives a universal asset, which would span the centuries. Supported by Unesco, Ice Memory mobilizes scientists from all over the world.
This somewhat crazy project was born in the mind of the glaciologist Jérôme Chappellaz, at the end of the 2000s. The scientist then carried out his research in the laboratory of glaciology and geophysics of the environment…
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