PAGES Antarctica 2k Meeting

The 2015 Antarctica2k working group meeting, organized by the Department of Environmental Sciences, Informatics and Statistics, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice will take place on 3-4 September 2015 at the Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti. During the 2 days meeting, a almost complete knowledgement abaout the last 2000 years of Antarctica (marine and continental) climate will be explorated. All participants at the workshop will be expected to contribute to the Antarctica2k objectives by sharing and compiling data, by providing synthesis products or by comparing model simulations with available data.

Ice Core Science Movie at Cannes Film Festival

The film maker Luc Jacquet (who received the Academy award in 2006 for "March of the Penguins") has produced a new film called "Ice and the sky" (http://iceandsky.com/), which will be released in Fall 2015 in our country, and probably at about the same time internationally. It is about the story of Claude Lorius, the founder of ice core science in France. It relates his work which started with the International Geophysical Year in 1957/58 when he wintered-over with two colleagues at Charcot station, a small hut below the snow 400 km inland Adelie land. And it runs until the landmark publication of 3 joint articles in Nature on October 1987, showing for the first time the tight link between carbon dioxide and climate in the course of a glacial-interglacial cycle, out of the famous Russian Vostok core. The film is built on a permanent balance between archive films showing Claude Lorius at work since 1956, and recent shootings of our now-83-year old colleague silently watching current climate warming impacts on the planet. The wish of Luc Jacquet is to create emotion of a public which does not usually care about climate change, through its discovery with this film of how our science developed and came to important conclusions for our future. The film also highlights the very strong international dimension of ice core science, with for instance the landmark event of December 1984 when US aircrafts brought French scientists to a Soviet station, while the Cold War was still going on... You can watch the trailer here : http://www.firstshowing.net/2015/watch-official-trailer-for-luc-jacquets-new-doc-ice-and-the-sky/ Last Sunday was a special day for us and for the ice core community. Indeed the organizers of the Cannes film festival selected "Ice and the sky" to be the unique film being screened during the closure ceremony of the festival. The decision was quite political. A way to show that the movie community is concerned and that it wants to play a role with respect to the COP-21 which will take place in Paris on December 2015. Some critics were pretty good following the screening, like here for instance : http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/ice-sky-la-glace-le-797778

Mineral Dust Measurements at Diamond Light Source (UK)

From 21st to 26th of May, 2015, a group o 6 scientst and students meet an Diamond Light Source (UK) for XANES (X-Ray Absorption Near-Edge Structure) measurements on one of the large Synchrotron facility of Europpe. A collaboration between EuroCold Lab, Italian Institute of Nuclear Physics, Department of Regional Affairs (Italian Ministry Council) and Diamond Light Source measure more than 30 mineral dust samples from Talos Dome ice core, spanning ages from 2.000 to 150.000 years, and samples from some South America possible dust source areas. The very low quantities of dust collected from ice core samples (nanograms to femptograms) need a very high energy instrumentations and special setting-up that only these kind of accelerator can provide. All the samples are prepared in the EuroCold Lab where high clean facilityes can be used for reduce the risk of contamination of these very sensible samples. Moreover, only personnel with high specialization can provide important capacities for work on this kind of science.