Ice Memory Foundation: European research organisations open sanctuary storing ice cores in Antarctica

The Ice Memory Foundation has opened the first-ever sanctuary for mountain ice cores at Concordia Station in Antarctica, it announced on 14/01/2026. These climate archives are "safely stored in an ice cave at a temperature close to -52°C, designed to preserve ice for future generations of scientists," the foundation said.

"Climate change is the biggest threat of our time", said Thomas F. Stocker, geoscientist and climate physicist and chairman of the Ice Memory Foundation. "While we struggle hard to keep the warming well below 2°C, relative to pre-industrial levels, glaciers around the world are melting rapidly. All the climate and environmental information that is contained in this ice will end up in the ocean".

The Ice Memory project, funded by its historic partner the Prince Albert II Foundation, aims to rescue "20 ice core records within 20 years". "We are on track, having achieved the trading of ten ice cores all over the world", according to Carlo Barbante, vice-chair of the foundation.

The first two ice cores, each weighing 1.7 tonnes, have been stored in the cave. One was…