A New Paradigm for Ice Core Drilling

The search for answers to questions about the changing climate has created an urgent need to discover past climate signatures archived in glaciers and ice sheets, and to understand current ice sheet behavior. Recognizing that U.S. scientific productivity in this area depends upon a mechanism for ensuring continuity and international cooperation in ice coring and drilling efforts, along with the availability of appropriate drills, drilling expertise, and innovations in drilling technology, the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) has established the Ice Drilling Program Office (IDPO) and its partner, the Ice Drilling Design and Operations group (IDDO), together known as IDPO/IDDO (Figure 1).