Journey to the centre of the ice: narrating ice-core drillings in northern Greenland

Abstract

On the remote icecap in northwest Greenland, an international team of glaciologists led by scientists from Copenhagen University recently drilled a 2537.36 m long ice core, finally reaching bedrock in July 2010. The ice core charts a climate history that reaches back more than 115,000 years to the Eemian period. This time travel ultimately aims at predicting the climate of the future. While the heroic polar expeditions of the past ventured into unknown spaces horizontally, the secrets of the frontier are now vertically stored in the ice cores. In Secrets of the Ice, five videos produced for public dissemination, Greenland is displayed as an empty, frozen space, waiting to be conquered by scientists. Resonating with classical Arctic explorer myths, this conquest has to overcome the difficulties presented by a harsh wilderness landscape. The article situates the glaciological project in Greenland within a network of colonial relations that marks the storylines adopted by both video producers and scientists.