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    Secrets in the Ice

    by Yvonne Bang Feb 05, 2015 5 minutes

    When we think of storing information today, we conjure up rows of giant computer servers that house endless streams of digital data. All the world’s information, it seems, will one day be preserved as ones and zeros in permanent, stable, and indestructible devices. So it may sound strange that ice, an ephemeral, unstable, and brittle substance, has been one of the world’s most permanent means of information storage. The cloud, in fact, has nothing on ice. Ice holds the key to understanding how the climate has changed over millions of years, and may change Earth in years to come. We asked a host of scientists to help us thaw out the information.

    Climate Records

    Frozen in This meter-long West Antarctic Ice Sheet ice core was extracted in 2009 by a team from the United States. It shows fractures and bubbles, yielding information about past climate.

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