Uploaded September 2020 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago

---

Glaciologist Martin Siegert on the history of glacial theory, lake Vostok research and what ice tells us about the Earth’s climate in the past.

Read the full text on our website: serious-science.org/glaciology-and-climate-change-10264

'The ice beneath Vostok station is 3700 meters thick, and the ice at the bottom of that was deposited 450,000 years ago. If you have an ice core and you drill down all the way to the bottom of the ice at Vostok station, you pull it back up and you sample the air within it, you actually sample the actual air that existed all that time ago and every year in between. We have a continuous direct measurement of the Earth's atmosphere and its constituents.'

Martin Siegert, PhD in Glaciology, Imperial College London, The Grantham Institute for Climate Change

Glaciology: serious-science.org/glaciology-10043
Ice Ages: serious-science.org/ice-ages-6184

Be the first to find out about our new videos and articles. Learn interesting facts about various topics and people. Discover the answers to the big questions. Be in the know.

serious-science.org

Follow us:
We are on Patreon: patreon.com/SeriousScience
Facebook — facebook.com/serious.science.org
Twitter — twitter.com/scienceserious
YouTube — youtube.com/user/SeriousScience
Instagram — instagram.com/serious.science
Tumblr — serious-science.tumblr.com
VK — vk.com/seriousscience