EPICA receives the Descartes prize for excellent research
Danish ice core scientists in Centre for Ice and Climate are partners in the EPICA project that received The Descartes prize for excellence in transnational, collaborative research in Bruxelles Wednesday March 12.
Professor Dorthe Dahl-Jensen at the ice core storage in Antarctica where the summer temperature reaches minus 50 degrees.
The Descartes prize is one of the most prestigious awards in the world, and it is a great honour and recognition to receive the prize, says professor Dorthe Dahl-Jensen, who is also leader of Centre for Ice and Climate. The centre works with ice drillings in both the North and South polar regions, and it was the international EPICA project (European Project for Ice Coring in Antarctica), comprising 12 research groups from 10 countries, that received the prize.
In the motivation, the prize committee says:
To predict the future it is necessary to understand the past. In the field of climate change study of past environmental variation is limited, especially for events in the distant past. But ice cores extracted from deep in the polar regions offer a unique insight. The European EPICA project ventured to Antarctica to retrieve two continuous ice cores that extend the historical climate record back 800 000 years. Their analysis of the ice within these cores has made an extremely significant contribution to improving understanding of climate change, its mechanisms and consequences.
Read the description of the EPICA project in the European Science Awards' Brochure on 2007 laureates and finalists or read more about EPICA on this unofficial home page.