The
FRONTLI N E S of
C L I M AT E
CHANGE
There are two main types of glaciers, those found in mountain ranges like the Himalayas and the Andes, and the massive ice sheets that cover huge land masses like Greenland and Antarctica. The outlook for these “mountain glaciers” is certainly grim, and most climate scientists predict that they will be entirely gone by the end of the century. But it is the future of the massive domes of ice that stretch across Greenland and Antarctica that is truly in question.
OVER 80% OF THE COUNTRY
of Greenland is covered by an ice sheet that is more than 100,000 years old—and is melting fast.
“ICE IS NATURE’S
What is a glacier?
The Frontlines “Calving” is the breaking off of large chunks from major claciers like Greenland’s Jacobshavn Glacier, the fastest moving glacier in the world. Glacial calving has become one of the clearest visual manifestations of climate change. Jacobshavn is sliding into the sea at a top speed of 170 feet a day, but how quickly it and other massive glaciers like it will disappear is the biggest uncertainty in the world of climate science.
IN 2012 AT JACOBSHAVN, A TEAM BEHIND THE DOCUMENTARY “CHASING ICE” CAUGHT THE LARGEST DOCUMENTED CALVING EVENT EVER RECORDED. THE 3,000 FOOT HIGH GLACIER RETREATED A FULL MILE ACROSS A CALVING FACE THREE MILES WIDE.
Visualizing Change James Balog, seen at right, is a photographer whose work explores man’s relationship with nature. His most notable work has come in the last decade, focusing on climate change and the glaciers of the world. He initiated the Extreme Ice Survey in 2007, a huge photographic undertaking that captured various major glaciers around the world over the course of days, months and years. The documentary Chasing Ice, which was nominated for an Oscar in 2012, detailed Balog’s process and personal struggles with the project. Balog at one point had over 43 cameras set up in the field, like the one at right, all shooting every half hour of daylight year-round. Artists like Balog are necessary to bring about systematic change and to call mass attention to issues surrounding climte change. Science and projections can be dry, even in advanced visualizations. Balog attempts to capture the aesthetic majesty of the massive glaciers while also showing us our own impact on nature.
Balog installing a camera at Columbia Glacier in Alaska.
is a way to shape human perception. JAMES BALOG
“To truly grasp what we’re doing to the planet, you need to understand this gigantic measurement.”
400,000 OLYMPIC POOLS 100,000,000 ELEPHANTS
In the International System of Units, the prefix “giga” means 109, or one billion (1,000,000,000). Hence terms like “gigawatt” or “gigahertz.” Thus, a gigaton is equivalent to a billion metric tons. Or for another analogy, consider how Meredith Nettles of the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University recently described a gigaton-sized piece of ice: “If you took the whole National Mall, and covered it up with ice, to a height about four times as high as the [Washington] monument,” says Nettles, you’d have about a gigaton of ice. “All the way down from the Capitol steps to the Lincoln Memorial.”
I CE MASS LOSS in Gigatons This data was gathered between 2002 and 2014. The unit used is Gigatons of Ice Mass. These are not absolute values, but instead are measured against an average over the course of those twelve years. So points above the x-axis do not indicate growth, but instead times at which the ice mass was above the twelve year average.
The GRACE (the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment) satellites are twin satellites launched in 2002 that collected this data. These satellites detect gravity fields— which is determined by mass—by measuring the distance between the two satellites.
T H E M E LTWAT E R L A K E S
“The lakes are an important part of the melt story that is still not fully understood,” says Jason Box, a professor. “These lakes can be 9 square kilometers in area...and they have been increasing in number. Many of the lakes drain abrubtly, sending an enormous volume of water down into the ice sheet, spreading out at the bed, lubricating the ice sheet flow, producing dramatic, fast accelerations.”
Thousands of rivers flow from the meltwater lakes into giant holes in the ice called moulins, which drain through tunnels in the ice sheet and out into the ocean.
So what does it all mean? It takes 360 gigatons of ice to raise the global sea level 1 millimeter. Globally, sea level is going up at an increasing rate of 2.6 to 2.9 millimeters per year, according to the latest research. The gigantic Greenland ice sheet now appears to be throwing off much more ice than Antarctica. A recent study put the loss at 378 gigatons per year for the years between 2009 and 2012. That’s a millimeter per year right there. Indeed, recent research suggests that some glacial iceberg calvings — from, say, Greenland’s Helheim Glacier — can be as large as a gigaton at a single time. Warm ocean water also expands, so in addition to ice loss, the oceans are also growing in volume due to their temperature. And for those who don’t think 2 or 3 millimeters
The change in color from lighter colored, freshly exposed rock to darker colored, weathered and vegetated rock is called a trimline. The lighter colored rock at lower elevations was covered with ice and likely was exposed when the glacier calving front retreated past this region sometime between 1850 and 1930.
per year of ocean rise is a big deal — the real concern, with both Greenland and Antarctica (and also Alaska), is that these rates are increasing. And why might that be happening? Because of us. It’s because of the 34 gigatons annually of carbon dioxide that humanity is currently putting in the atmosphere.
The temperature threshold for drastic sea-level rise is near, but many scientists think we still have time to stop short of it, by sharply cutting back consumption of climate-warming coal, oil, and gas. Few doubt, however, that another 50 years of business as usual will take us beyond a point of no return.
Asked which of the world’s great ice sheets worries him more, Greenland or Antarctica, NASA Scientist Robert Bindschadler just smiles and says,
Notes ARTICLES “Greenland Melting”, Rolling Stone, Jeff Goodell “Greenland is Melting”, NYT, Coral Davenport, Josh Haner, Larry Buchanan and Derek Watkins “Meet the Gigaton the Huge Unit that Scientists Use to Track Planetary Change”, The Washington Post, Chris Mooney
PHOTOGRAPHY Photography Spread: Chasing Ice, Director Jeff Orlowski Rise Spread, and Jacobshavn Glacier: Photos of Jacobshavn Ice Fjord, Big Ice Studies Meltwater Lakes: Tyler Jones Last Spread: Sara Penrhyn-Jones The Gigaton: James Balog Cover image: Joe Raedle/Getty Images This book was set in Tisa Pro Regular and Italic, Fira Sans Light, and Effra Bold.
N OAH BAKE R Word and Image II Data Visualization B ook