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The name of one man in particular is linked to this discovery, that of Claude Lorius.
He led the first French expeditions to the glaciers of Antarctica where he collected core samples from the ice that had been formed over tens of thousands of years. This treasure trove enabled scientists to date and interpret the ice sheet.
He was also one of the first to realize that the bubbles of air often trapped inside the ice would be reliable and unique indicators of the composition of the air at the time the ice was formed.
Claude Lorius led numerous expeditions over his career, pushing always further into the Antartican continent, always deeper into the ice – drilling to a depth of 4 000 metres.
The expeditions became ever longer. His tenacity during the Concordia mission enabled the scientific community to reconstitute the temperatures and climate history of the last 30 to 40 000 years! But it was the drilling during his Antarctica expedition in 2004 that helped to reconstitute the climate of 800 000 years ago – a world record!
Festivals and Awards:
* 2008: "BLUE PLANET AWARD" for glaciologist CLAUDE LORIUS by the "ASAHI GLASS FOUNDATION", Japan, November 2008
* 2008: Grand Prix "Les Jumeaux d'Or" at the International Film Festival 'de la Mer et de ses Environnements' (of the Sea and its Enfironment), Henday (France).