SLOW ICE NEEDS QUICK ACTION

Today we are checking out the beauty of some of the largest slow-moving things on Earth, glaciers. We know they are in danger, and that puts us in danger. We need to take action to preserve their Slow Beauty now.

Glaciers are giant rivers of ice, which flow so slowly that you can only see them moving if you watch them in extreme time lapse. Despite their lack of speed, they have incredible power, as they sculpt mountains, carve out valleys, and help to regulate our planet’s climate.

Many of our planet’s key glaciers are in an irreversible retreat due to global warming.

A team of researchers led by NASA investigated the decline of glaciers in West Antarctica and have recently concluded that nothing can now stop them from melting away.

The scientists looked at data collected over the course 40 years, measuring six of the biggest glaciers which lead into the Amundsen Bay. If predictions are correct, the meltdown will add roughly 1.2 meters (4 ft.) to global sea level rise. And it will influence melt in adjacent sectors of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, effectively tripling the sea level rise.

The new study has been accepted for publication in Geophysical Research Letters, a journal of the American Geophysical Union.

The Amundsen Bay sector of Antarctica contains some of the biggest and fastest moving glaciers on Earth. The Pine Island Glacier (PIG), for example, covers about 160,000 sq km, or about two-thirds the area of the UK. These glaciers are also melting at a faster rate.

These glaciers are among the most vulnerable to melt because their bulk sits below current sea level and the the rock bed beneath them slopes inland towards the continent.

Because there is no large ridge or hill at the back of these glaciers that could create a barrier and hold the retreat back, scientists fear that their disappearance is unstoppable.

CHASING ICE

Chasing Ice is a gorgeous award-winning film, directed by Jeff Orlowski, about the state and fate of our planet’s glaciers.

Acclaimed environmental photographer James Balog is obsessed with glaciers. He has been documenting their beauty, as well as their destruction, in hopes that we too will become moved by them enough to take actions to try to save them.

Balog traveled to Greenland, Iceland and Alaska in order to capture images of warming glaciers as they change shape and mass, and, ultimately, as they change our planet. His project, the Extreme Ice Survey, collected data on the seasonal changes of glaciers, using cameras installed across the Arctic region.

Using time-lapse photography techniques, Balog created a multi-year record of glacial change.

The documentary shows a glacier calving event that took place at Jakobshavn Glacier in Greenland, which lasted 75 minutes, the longest such event ever captured on film.

This was no easy feat, given the harsh conditions which created challenges for both the team and the equipment.

"The calving of a massive glacier believed to have produced the ice that sank the Titanic is like watching a city break apart.”

The film received an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Song for the song "Before My Time," written by J. Ralph and performed by Scarlett Johansson and Joshua Bell.

Chasing Ice, is sad and frightening. The hope is that the magnificence and importance of glaciers the the film presents, will have an impact on us all and that we will figure out how to preserve this Slow Beauty.

See more about Chasing Ice in our earlier posts Keeping Up with Ice and 10 Most Beautiful Films at Sundance. And check out James Balog’s book, Ice: Portraits of Vanishing Glaciers.

EXPANDING KARAKORAM GLACIERS

Glaciers are slowly gaining ground in the magnificent mountainous Karakoram region of the Himalayas, where K2, the world’s 2nd highest peak, rises up.

While the rest of the Himalayan range is suffering from glacial melt due to our warming climate, the glaciers of Karakoram are expanding. And, unlike most places in the rest of the world, snowfall is increasing here vs. decreasing.

Thomas De Dorlodot, professional paragliding and paramotoring pilot, who is also a talented photographer, leads a team, called Search Projects, in sailing across this icy chasm.

Sarah Kapnick, a postdoctoral researcher in atmospheric and ocean sciences and her team at Princeton University set out to find out why.

They collected data on recent precipitation and temperatures from the Pakistan Meteorological Department and satellite data, then combined this information with climate models. They tracked changes in three regions of the Himalayas between 1861 and 2100: the Karakoram, the central, and the southeast Himalayas.

As our planet’s climate warms, the amount of precipitation increases over these mountains. The Karakoram region has more elevation variability than the other two regions and it gets most of its precipitation in winter, as snow, while the other regions get more in the summer, as rain.

Glaciers grow with snow and diminish with rain.

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IMAGE CREDITS:

1. Photo: Courtesy of Rainbow Tours. Glacier Waterfalls.
2. Image: Courtesy of NASA. Malaspina Glacier, Alaska.
3. Photo: by Dimitry B. Perito Moreno Glacier, Argentina.
4. Photo: by Matitio. Perito Moreno Glacier, Argentina.
5. Photo: by Jenny Pansing. “1707e falling-- Margerie Glacier in motion.”
6. Photo: by Doug Wheller. Glacier Argentina.
7. Photo: Courtesy of Ice Lagoon. Ice Boat Tour.
8. Photo: by David. Upsala Glacier Up Close.
9. Image: by James Balog. Courtesy of Exposure Labs. Chasing Ice film directed by Jeff Orlowski.
10. Image: by James Balog. Courtesy of Exposure Labs. Chasing Ice film directed by Jeff Orlowski.
11. Image: by James Balog. Courtesy of Exposure Labs. Chasing Ice film directed by Jeff Orlowski.
12. Image: by James Balog. Courtesy of Exposure Labs. Chasing Ice film directed by Jeff Orlowski.
13. Image: by James Balog. Courtesy of Exposure Labs. Chasing Ice film directed by Jeff Orlowski.
14. Image: by James Balog. Courtesy of Exposure Labs. Chasing Ice film directed by Jeff Orlowski.
15. Image: Courtesy of Rizzoli USA. Ice: Portraits of Vanishing Glaciers.
16. Photo: Courtesy of Summit Post. Gondogoro Glacier.
17. Photo: by Thomas De Dorlodot. Courtesy of Search Projects. Karakoram flight.
18. Photo: By Mark Hodson. Glacier at Khunjerab Pass, Pakistan-China border.
19. Photo: By Black Zero. Mighty Karakoram Cliff.
20. Photo: by Peter Lee. Sawyer Glacier [Explored].
21. Photo: by Vincent Moschetti. “Glacier lagoon - jökulsarlon.”