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AlUla Camel Cup to be Organized in March Under the Patronage of Saudi Crown Prince

Inscriptions showing beauty in the ancient history of AlUla (Royal Commission for AlUla website)
Inscriptions showing beauty in the ancient history of AlUla (Royal Commission for AlUla website)
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AlUla Camel Cup to be Organized in March Under the Patronage of Saudi Crown Prince

Inscriptions showing beauty in the ancient history of AlUla (Royal Commission for AlUla website)
Inscriptions showing beauty in the ancient history of AlUla (Royal Commission for AlUla website)

Under the patronage of Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, Crown Prince and Chairman of the Royal Commission for AlUla (RCU), AlUla Camel Cup will be held from March 14-17, with a grand prize pool of SR80 million.

The RCU said that the AlUla Camel Cup is organized by RCU in collaboration with the Saudi Camel Racing Federation.

The event seeks to develop camel sport as a basic component of the Kingdom's cultural heritage and will be pinnacle of the Kingdom's camel-racing season.

Amr AlMadani, CEO of the Royal Commission for AlUla said: “The AlUla Camel Cup will celebrate the most noble of Saudi Arabian sporting traditions, welcoming royalty VIPS, the elite of the sport and many distinguished guests to the most glorious of settings for this illustrious occasion.”

For his part, Mahmoud Suleiman Albalawi, Executive Director of the Saudi Camel Racing Federation, said: “The pinnacle of the Saudi Arabian camel racing season, which will crown a Champion of Champions, can have no better setting than the performance grade track at AlUla, a jewel of the desert where tradition meets modernity.

AlUla Camel Cup is one of the flagship sports events of AlUla Moments 2023 calendar of events and festivals, which includes five major festivals and six marque events. Other sports events taking place include “The Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques Endurance Cup in AlUla 2023, “AlUla Trail Race", and the "Saudi Tour".

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Scientists Drill Nearly 2 Miles Down to Pull 1.2 Million-year-old Ice Core from Antarctic

An international team of scientists announced successfully drilled one of the oldest ice cores yet - The AP
An international team of scientists announced successfully drilled one of the oldest ice cores yet - The AP
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Scientists Drill Nearly 2 Miles Down to Pull 1.2 Million-year-old Ice Core from Antarctic

An international team of scientists announced successfully drilled one of the oldest ice cores yet - The AP
An international team of scientists announced successfully drilled one of the oldest ice cores yet - The AP

An international team of scientists announced Thursday they’ve successfully drilled one of the oldest ice cores yet, penetrating nearly 2 miles (2.8 kilometers) to Antarctic bedrock to reach ice they say is at least 1.2 million years old.

Analysis of the ancient ice is expected to show how Earth's atmosphere and climate have evolved. That should provide insight into how Ice Age cycles have changed, and may help in understanding how atmospheric carbon changed climate, they said, The AP reported.

“Thanks to the ice core we will understand what has changed in terms of greenhouse gases, chemicals and dusts in the atmosphere,” said Carlo Barbante, an Italian glaciologist and coordinator of Beyond EPICA, the project to obtain the core. Barbante also directs the Polar Science Institute at Italy's National Research Council.

The same team previously drilled a core about 800,000 years old. The latest drilling went 2.8 kilometers (about 1.7 miles) deep, with a team of 16 scientists and support personnel drilling each summer over four years in average temperatures of about minus-35 Celsius (minus-25.6 Fahrenheit).

Italian researcher Federico Scoto was among the glaciologists and technicians who completed the drilling at the beginning of January at a location called Little Dome C, near Concordia Research Station.

“It was a great a moment for us when we reached the bedrock,” Scoto said. Isotope analysis gave the ice's age as at least 1.2 million years old, he said.

Both Barbante and Scoto said that thanks to the analysis of the ice core of the previous Epica campaign they have assessed that concentrations of greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide and methane, even during the warmest periods of the last 800,000 years, have never exceeded the levels seen since the Industrial Revolution began.

“Today we are seeing carbon dioxide levels that are 50% above the highest levels we’ve had over the last 800,000 years," Barbante said.

The European Union funded Beyond EPICA (European Project for Ice Coring in Antarctica) with support from nations across the continent. Italy is coordinating the project.

The announcement was exciting to Richard Alley, a climate scientist at Penn State who was not involved with the project and who was recently awarded the National Medal of Science for his career studying ice sheets.

Alley said advancements in studying ice cores are important because they help scientists better understand the climate conditions of the past and inform their understanding of humans’ contributions to climate change in the present. He added that reaching the bedrock holds added promise because scientists may learn more about Earth’s history not directly related to the ice record itself.

“This is truly, truly, amazingly fantastic,” Alley said. “They will learn wonderful things.”