Beyond EPICA Project: studying the past to predict climate change

The Beyond EPICA project's success underscores the critical importance of international scientific collaboration in addressing global challenges. As we celebrate World Water Day 2025, this milestone serves as a poignant reminder of the intricate connections between our planet's ice reserves and the broader climate system, highlighting the urgent need for concerted efforts in glacier preservation and climate change mitigation.

The Beyond EPICA – Oldest Ice project is an ambitious international effort of 15 participants from 10 countries, aimed at uncovering Earth’s deep climate history by retrieving ice cores from Antarctica. Funded under the EU research and innovation programme Horizon 2020, this initiative builds upon the successes of previous EPICA (European Project for Ice Coring in Antarctica) projects, which provided climate data spanning 800,000 years. Beyond EPICA seeks to go even further, drilling down to ice potentially over 1.2 million years old, unlocking insights into past climate shifts and helping predict future changes.

After years of meticulous planning, fieldwork, and technological advancements, the project team has recently reached a significant milestone in climate research by successfully drilling a 2,800-metre ice core at Antarctica's Little Dome C site, reaching the bedrock beneath the ice sheet. This marks a significant step in retrieving some of the oldest ice ever extracted.

The extracted ice cores are expected to provide invaluable insights into past climate conditions, atmospheric temperatures, and greenhouse gas concentrations.  By analysing trapped air bubbles within the ancient ice, scientists hope to better understand the Mid-Pleistocene Transition—a period over a million years ago when Earth's glacial cycles changed dramatically. This knowledge is crucial for refining climate models, which in turn inform policies to combat modern climate change.

The achievement of the Beyond EPICA project comes at a particularly fitting moment, aligning with World Water Day on 22 March, whose theme this year highlights the importance of glaciers. As natural reservoirs of freshwater, glaciers are essential to global water cycles, yet they are increasingly under threat from rising temperatures. The knowledge gained from Beyond EPICA will provide essential context for the impact of climate shifts on ice masses and water resources worldwide.

These insights will not only enrich our historical climate knowledge but also guide future environmental policies and climate action.

For more information, please see the EU factsheet.