The ice core enigma

[Suzie]

How can glacial ice be dated, being that in warm periods which clearly happen, the ice at the top will melt. Which erases years or decades, or even hundreds of years of ice.  So ice care dating makes the assumption that the top players are recent when they may well be millenia old. Since the amount of this melt can never be known, what use is ice core dating

[Carrock]

39 minutes ago, Suzie said:

How can glacial ice be dated, being that in warm periods which clearly happen, the ice at the top will melt. Which erases years or decades, or even hundreds of years of ice.  So ice care dating makes the assumption that the top players are recent when they may well be millenia old. Since the amount of this melt can never be known, what use is ice core dating

Why not do a little research?

e.g. where is your evidence that in warm periods the temperature everywhere on earth is above say -5C so that the 'top ice' everywhere melts?

Quote

So ice care dating makes the assumption that the top players are recent when they may well be millenia old.

No. Lots of independent checks before any ice core is considered to be valid evidence of anything.

Edited December 4, 2018 by Carrock
minor typos

[Strange]

48 minutes ago, Suzie said:

So ice care dating makes the assumption that the top players are recent when they may well be millenia old. Since the amount of this melt can never be known, what use is ice core dating

Many different techniques are used to date ice cores (as with other techniques like tree rings). It is not just about counting layers. A good summary here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_core#Dating