Glaciers: data centers of the cryosphere

Explorer and NGO founder Jiaojiao Hu explains why glaciers are among the Earth’s most effective data storage systems.

What inspired you to create Polar Hub, and what is your mission?

In May 2017, mountaineer and glaciologist Wen Xu was in the Himalayas at an altitude of 5,500m, carrying a backpack full of monitoring equipment. Suddenly he slipped and fell into an ice-cold, glacial meltwater lake.

No one expected that a lake could have formed at that altitude, at that time of year: cold weather should have kept the lake frozen. Wen survived by slipping off his backpack and wrenching himself out of the icy water.

The father of two little girls, Wen is also my mountaineering partner and husband. We both felt shock, but the potentially fatal accident also triggered an epiphany. We decided to promote broader understanding of ice and climate change. That’s how Polar Hub was born.

From that time on, Polar Hub has been vested in the extremes of our planet: the Arctic, the Antarctic and the Third Pole, i.e. the mountains and high-altitude Tibetan Plateau. These regions, covered by snow, ice and glaciers, are sometimes called the Cryosphere. 

How do scientists get data from ice, and what are they analyzing?

The mission of Polar Hub is to drill ice-cores from certain glaciers – that is, to take samples of the ice from deep inside the glacier.

Just as layers of soil show information about the Earth, so do layers of ice. That means glaciers are amazing natural data storage systems. They are formed by the accumulation of snowfall. If temperatures permit, and the snow remains and is pressed into ice, then, just as with tree rings or soil layers, a bio-geochemical history is “documented.” A natural database is formed, recording the changes in Earth's past climate and environment.

Yes, I’ve seen you describe glaciers and ice as “the Earth’s memory, and her diary through time.”

Exactly. And to extract these memories, scientists have to drill into the glacier. They can then harvest this data by analyzing the chronologically layered samples of ice. Each sample contains small, densely compacted bubbles trapped inside the ice. These, in turn, carry information about earlier atmospheric composition. Laboratory analysis can provide us with a window into past changes in the atmosphere, and into conditions such as trends in rainfall, forest fires, temperatures, levels of greenhouse gases, chemical pollutants, and so on. Thus, data give us clues to how climate has varied in the past. They also allow us to predict future changes.

How urgent is it for science to capture the data stored in the Earth’s ice?

Quite urgent. You might hear that word used much in scientific research, but the impact of climate change on glaciers is clearly visible. The latest inventory of glaciers in China showed that, in the past 60 years, they have shrunk by 26%. More than 7,000 small glaciers have completely vanished, and over the past decade, glaciers have entered a stage of rapid retreat.

This is a race against time to rescue ice data. As part of the process, we need to accelerate the building of extra data infrastructure, including an ice-core bank to store the ice samples in good conditions. Polar Hub wants to help future generations of scientists who may have questions about the ice data that we don’t even know to ask yet.

How can technology companies such as Huawei support your mission to protect glacier data? And what role might AI play in this mission?

Companies such as Huawei hold transformative potential. Tech firms can leverage their expertise in data storage and management to address one of the most pressing challenges in glaciology: preserving and analyzing vast, irreplaceable ice-core datasets. Cloud platforms could revolutionize how we archive centuries of climate records, ensuring global access while guarding against physical loss.

Beyond storage, AI-driven analytics could accelerate breakthroughs in decoding ice-cores, tackling significant questions such as those related to ice-core dating. In addition, real-time monitoring of glaciers might also benefit from AI-powered analysis. Such innovations could spur policymakers to action. 

This year saw the first World Day for Glaciers, on March 21; it’s also the UN’s first official International Year of Glaciers’ Preservation. Come December 31, how will you judge whether this has been a success?

As people who work in glaciers, we view The International Year of Glaciers’ Preservation (IYGP) as both a reward and an opportunity. We are thrilled to launch more initiatives together with international partners and it’s been a wonderful start.

Looking ahead, the long-term success of IYGP will still hinge on tangible outcomes: a more collaborative and diverse working mechanism, increased global funding for glacial research, and stricter emissions policies informed by ice-core evidence.

Crucially, we must bridge the gap between scientific urgency and public understanding. While most people have a general idea that climate change is causing glaciers to melt, many still underestimate their own role in it, or do not know how to participate in climate action. We often say to our audiences that “glaciers are for all us.” We are trying to tell the stories of glaciers and human existence: how they shape our climate, inspire our exploratory spirit, and serve as both scientific archives and embodiments of nature's sublime beauty.