Why I love drilling in the mountains early in the morning

“The sun is shining in this picture, but this isn’t your typical summer’s day — we’re on the summit of the Weißseespitze mountain in Kaunertal, Austria, 3,500 metres above sea level, and it’s −5 °C. My colleagues and I collect ice-core samples from the Gepatschferner glacier, Austria’s second largest, which lies just below the summit. I’m in the green jacket, holding the motor of a mechanical drill to make sure the cutting head is entering the ice at the right angle and speed, while my colleague, glaciologist Martin Stocker-Waldhuber, works the controls.

Fieldwork days start at around 4.30 a.m., because we make four round trips in a helicopter to transport everyone and everything we need to the drilling site. The drill needs a lot of electricity to run, so we have to bring solar panels and batteries with us, as well as all the drill parts.

I’m a technician with the Institute for Interdisciplinary Mountain Research of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Innsbruck. I often work in temperatures as low as −18 °C, fixing small parts of equipment, so sometimes I can’t wear gloves. It takes a certain type of person to do this: you have to be able to focus when you’re very cold. Everyone on the team is very resilient, knowledgeable and quick to solve problems.

Variations in the layers of the glacier’s ice cores reveal periods of expansion and retreat over 6,000 years. By aligning the history of the glacier with temperature records that have been collected since 1850, we can see how the climate of Europe’s alpine region has changed with global warming and how it’s likely to change in the future. The ice is a climate archive.

I’m in the mountains for around 70 days a year, mostly from May to the end of September. I love this work, because I’m outside using my hands and my brain, and I’m playing a part in achieving a better understanding of our world.”

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.