BE-OI (Beyond EPICA Oldest Ice)

Presentation

The main scientific objective of the project is to obtain quantitative, high-resolution ice-core information on climate and environmental changes over the last 1.5 Myr in Antarctica, in order to understand the role of forcing factors and especially of greenhouse gases during the Mid-Pleistocene transition [MPT, 900 kyr to 1.2 Myr ago], when a dominant 40 kyr cyclicity gave way to the current 100 kyr period. Ice cores contain direct and quantitative information about past climate forcing and atmospheric responses, thus contributing to the knowledge on global changes in the climate system and to understand the cause and effect relationship that led to the enigmatic MPT change.