American Institute of Physics. Center for History of Physics. Study of Multi-Institutional Collaborations. Phase II: Space Science and Geophysics.

The Greenland Ice Sheet Project, established in 1978, was a small collaboration among Danish, Swiss, and U.S. scientists, who established that analysis of ice cores from Greenland's glacier could yield a relatively high-resolution record of climate history. In 1988, the second Greenland Ice Sheet Project was initiated, with engineering management provided by the Polar Ice Coring Office (PICO) and science management provided by the University of New Hampshire. Participating scientists examined a 3000 meter ice core drilled to the base of the glacier at its thickest, least disturbed point and into the bedrock from the last inter-glacial period. This large collaborative project was conducted in parallel with a European project (GRIP), which drilled through the same ice sheet 39 kilometers (10 ice-thicknesses) away, a distance that will make statistical comparisons of the cores convenient. By examining physical properties of the cores and the composition of the air bubbles trapped in the cores, participating scientists are constructing time series on which to base inferences concerning the dynamics of climate change.