ABSTRACT
The long and continuous ice cores obtained from drilling thick ice sheets of Antarctica provide us with one of the best high-resolution records of climate change during the last 800 kilo years. Away from anthropogenic activities, the ice core records are relatively uncorrupted and well preserved. The interior of Antarctica becomes still far away from the moist warm climate of the coastal region further reducing the moisture transport due to continentality. Despite being so dry, the desert continent holds 70% of the freshwater of the Earth. Much of the early history of the Antarctic ice sheet is revealed not from Antarctica but from the marine sedimentary record in the Southern Ocean surrounding Antarctica. However, for the last few thousand years, several ice cores reveal a direct record of Antarctic climate. The history of origin and subsequent permanent establishment of the Antarctic ice sheet has been well constrained by the oxygen isotope record of the benthic foraminifera from the marine sediments.
