A joint US-Australian research team has collected ice core samples from Antarctica containing air bubbles dating back to the 1870s.

Cool footage from January 2019, shows a drill dropping down the icy entrance through "centuries" to search for a handful of atoms that could reveal how well our atmosphere has been removing greenhouse gases and help solve one of the climate change's biggest challenges.

From November 2018 to February 2019, the team set up drilling rigs in Law Dome, a large ice dome directly south of Cape Poinsett, Antarctica.

Peter Neff, scientist and Postdoctoral Research Associate at the University of Washington told Newsflare: "At the snowy Law Dome site, air of this age is reached at 240 meters depth.

"The team was collecting large volumes of ice to investigate the process driving atmospheric removal of pollutants and the greenhouse gas methane -- and how it has changed during industrialisation over the last 150 years.

"This oxidation process determines how long a heat-trapping molecule like methane can warm atmosphere."

Neff (@icy_pete) posted the video to TikTok with the caption: "Antarctic #glacier ice has trapped air inside; bubbles that were once the space between fingers of snowflakes."