According to a CNRS study, glacier melt has accelerated over the past twenty years, retreating twice as fast as before. Between 2021 and 2022 alone, glaciers lost another 6% of their volume. With each disappearance, a part of the Earth’s memory—patiently preserved in the layers of ice accumulated over millennia—is lost forever.
- Preserve ice cores in a sanctuary in Antarctica for future generations.
- Establish a global environmental heritage recognized as a common good of humanity.
- Share scientific data from the ice cores to advance research and inform political decision-making.
- Collect ice cores from 20 glaciers over 20 years to build a scientific resource for current and future researchers.
- Analyze these cores to reconstruct past variations in climate, environment, and atmospheric composition.
- Store “heritage cores” long-term in a sanctuary in Antarctica for future generations.
Discover the Ice Memory project in video:
The Ice Memory Foundation aims to collect, save, and manage ice cores from selected glaciers in danger of degradation or disappearance, with a view to preserving the information they contain for decades and centuries to come. Safeguarding these ice cores is key to providing scientific advances: the knowledge on past climate and environment history obtained through the ice cores will continue to guide policy decisions that will ultimately contribute to the well-being of humanity.