The Byrd Polar and Climate Research Center, located at 1090 Carmack Rd. Credit: Lantern File Photo
Ohio State’s Undergraduate Student Government adopted a resolution Wednesday urging the university to fund the Byrd Polar and Climate Research Center’s Ice Core Facility renovation.
The Byrd Center specializes in researching polar regions and understanding how the climate has varied over time and how it impacts the environment and human societies, according to its website. The center supports a variety of research groups, including groups studying climate analytics and geological sciences.
The resolution, introduced by fourth-year Parliamentarian Keyanah Peters, called on the university to grant the center at least $15 million to renovate the center’s ice core facility — the third largest archive of prehistoric ice core samples in the world — which currently is at capacity, holding approximately 4.5 miles of ice from 64 expeditions, according to the center’s website.
The resolution also encouraged the university to use funding from a grant offered by the Department of Energy and the West Campus Innovation Fund to help pay for the renovations.
Annalise Khandelwal, a fourth-year in environmental science and deputy director of USG’s Sustainability Committee, said the facility is led by Lonnie and Ellen Mosley-Thompson, who collect ice cores from around the world to run tests on and find data ranging from the temperature of volcanic activity, dust particles and greenhouse gases dating back thousands of years.
However, a failing HVAC system located in the Byrd Center’s Ice Core Facility has caused data collection on the ice cores to be compromised. Khandelwal said the system’s circulation is not working properly, causing the ice cores to melt.
“It’s actually snowing inside of the freezer so the faculty members have to go inside and scrape snow off the walls,” Khandelwal said.
According to Ria Narang, a third-year in environmental engineering, USG originally passed a resolution in 2021 calling on the university to invest in the ice core facility renovation, which at the time would have cost between $6-9 million.
Ohio State rejected the resolution, Narang said.
“The failing HVAC system damages much of Ohio State’s progress on their own sustainability goal as the Byrd has an international reputation and the potential to further push Ohio State’s reputation forward in the world of sustainability and scholarship,” Narang said.
Narang said that the Byrd facility, if properly renovated, would continue allowing students and faculty access to unique research opportunities and further the university’s sustainability initiatives.
“The Byrd Center has proved foundational climate change theories, as evidenced to be true from their ice core data, with some from ice cores that no other facility in the world will have access to due to accelerated glacial melting rates,” Narang said. “Dr. Lonnie Thompson, head researcher of the ice lab, has even presented some of these findings in front of Congress, bringing climate change to the forefront of American politics.”
The resolution was passed after an hour of discussion by the USG general assembly. Senator Josh Hickman, a second-year in public affairs, expressed his support for the bill.
“I think this is an amazing resolution,” Hickman said. “I know this is a small step in the process, but I think that this is something 40 years down the line we might thank ourselves for voting ‘yes’ on.”
