Supported projects

The REFROIDI project aims to acquire a -25°C cold room for storing and preparing ice core samples prior to analysis. The aim is to replace an existing cold room, using the elements that are still functional in order to reduce costs and carbon footprint as much as possible. The current cold room, used by various laboratories in the Paris region working with ice core samples, is poorly insulated and located in an outdoor shed, and is very sensitive to heatwave periods, leading to breakdowns every summer. These breakdowns threaten the proper conservation of the glacial archives, and a new basement cold room with a more watertight system needs to be installed. This acquisition is essential in the context of the current drilling of the Beyond EPICA core, which aims to reconstruct 1.5 million years of climate history. This cold room will also be used to prepare glacial samples for other programs, notably the Antarctic and Greenland ice cores currently being analyzed in the field of paleoclimate, and opened up to the community for various programs in the years to come. To facilitate the use of this equipment by different teams in relatively comfortable working conditions despite the cold, the REFROIDI cold room will be separated into two sections, one for storage between -20 and -25°C and one for preparation work (-15°C with the possibility of lowering the temperature if necessary). The sample preparation area will be equipped with workbenches, shelving, a balance and two band saws. Other equipment may be added in response to requests from new partners. This acquisition is essential if we are to maintain our capacity to store and analyze glacial archives in the Ile de France in the years to come, and thus be able to carry out the major paleoclimate research programs currently underway at national and international level, notably the European Beyond EPICA project, ANR BIOCOD and ANR ToBE.