The Greenland Ice Record

Part of Hall of Planet Earth.

Close-up of ice core in the Hall of Planet Earth AMNH/D. Finnin

To study past climate, scientists have extracted several ice cores from the Greenland Ice Sheet. This model represent a segment of a core known as GISP2. Scientists drilled through the bedrock for five years to retrieve the full three-kilometer (1.9-mile) core. Records from polar ice cores can span 100,000 years or more.