Daily briefing: Ice core is the longest-ever continuous record of Earth’s climate

You have full access to this article via your institution. Hello Nature readers, would you like to get this Briefing in your inbox free every day? Sign up here . Antarctic ice cores preserve tiny bubbles of ancient air, offering a record of Earth’s past atmosphere. Credit: British Antarctic Survey/Science Photo Library A 2.8-kilometre-deep ice core has yielded the longest continuous record of Earth’s climate and atmospheric conditions, stretching back 1.2 million years . Data from the core show how the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere tracked changes in global temperatures across multiple cycles of climate change. The core covers a period in Earth’s history during which ice ages became less frequent but more brutal. Researchers are hoping the oxygen isotopes and carbon dioxide in the core can provide some hints as to what caused the switch. Nature | 5 min read The largest-ever survey of physicists found that experts (and physics fans) remain divided about some of the field’s biggest questions . A poll of more than 1,500 readers of Physics Magazine and members of the American Physical Society revealed some surprising areas of disagreement. For example, there was “considerable skepticism over the standard model of cosmology” — called Λ cold dark matter (ΛCDM), in which cosmic history is largely the result of a struggle between the pull of dark matter and the push of dark energy. …