Traveling in Antarctica is very hard. The explorer Robert Falcon Scott wrote in 1912 about facing dangers on his journey to the South Pole. He said, “We took risks.” Even today, scientists in Antarctica face many challenges. Dr. Joel Pedro is a paleoclimate scientist. He studies ice that is very old. His team wants to find ice that is more than a million years old. This ice can tell us about Earth’s past climate.

This last season was tough for Pedro’s team. They needed to move a lot of heavy equipment to start drilling ice. However, many team members got sick with Covid-19, which delayed their work. They had to wait five weeks to start.

In December, a new site was chosen for drilling. This site is called Dome C North. The team finally reached the site on Christmas Eve. They were happy to be back in the field after a difficult year. Now, the drilling has begun. They hope to learn more about climate change from the old ice they find.