One constant in the Earth's climate: change

A scientific conference in Europe has brought out some recent research findings on the polar regions. Much is being learned for the first time about Antarctic's prehistoric climate. One thing's certain: there's been a lot of change. Over the eons.

The ice sheets on and around the Antarctic have flucuated dramatically over geological time spans. We are now seeing shrinking ice sheets, but there was a time when alpine forests and mountain streams existed on the southern polar continent. Now geologists have an almost uniterrupted picture of Antarctic's climate over the past seventeen million years.

These Antarctic research results were first reported at the European Geosciences Union meeting in Vienna.

Much of the new information is coming from high tech drilling techniques that get down into sloil that's been buried unde rice for millenia. The drilling project is going on across Antarctic.