Extreme Ice Survey

The Extreme Ice Survey documents rapid changes on glaciers across the Northern Hemisphere. It is the most wide-ranging glacier study ever conducted using ground-based, real-time photography. The Extreme Ice Survey uses time-lapse photography, conventional photography and video to illustrate the effects of global warming on the earth’s glacial ice. The Extreme Ice Survey team has installed 26 time-lapse cameras at 15 sites in Greenland, Iceland, Alaska, the Rocky Mountains and British Columbia, as well as a dozen positions for annual repeat photography in Iceland, the Alps and Bolivia. Collected images will be used for scientific evidence and as part of a global outreach campaign aimed at educating the public about the effects of global warming.

The Project

Origination

Nature photojournalist James Balog originated the Extreme Ice Survey in December 2006 after spending much of the previous two years photographing receding glaciers for "National Geographic" and "The New Yorker". During his intensive exploration, Balog saw extraordinary amounts of ice vanishing with shocking speed. Features that took centuries to develop were sometimes being destroyed in just a few years—or even just a few weeks. This was geologic-scale change happening not in the dim past or distant future, but right here, right now, in our own time. Since these changes are the most visually dramatic and immediate manifestations of global warming on our planet today, Balog decided to establish the Extreme Ice Survey. The project would ultimately evolve into an intensive team effort, bringing together journalists and scientists, artists and engineers.

Mission

Why does the Extreme Ice Survey team go through the trouble of photographing melting glaciers? Because time-lapse photography provides precise forensic evidence of the reality of global warming and its effect on the earth. Because the Extreme Ice Survey will preserve a photographic echo of these landscapes long after they’ve disappeared. Because showing epochal change happening in the context of our lives alters fundamental human perception of our relationship to nature. Because science can use the Extreme Ice Survey photographic record to understand the mechanics and pace of glacial retreat, and how it relates to climate change; this is of vital importance in understanding how fast the melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet is contributing to the rise of global sea level.

Objectives

Balog founded the Extreme Ice Survey to produce forensic evidence of the dramatic effects of global warming. Relying on a revolutionary employment of time-lapse photography, the collective images of Extreme Ice Survey will illustrate the geologic and geomorphic changes affected by climate change. These changes are occurring much faster than scientific modeling had previously predicted. The visual record produced by these images will be an invaluable scientific tool for future research and environmental activism.

Collection of field evidence is only half of the task facing the Extreme Ice Survey. The other half is a global outreach campaign. During months of post-production work, the time-lapse images will be edited into video that reveals how fast climate change is transforming large regions of our planet. The images and video will then appear in long-form television specials, television news programs, a large-format book, radio content, magazine articles, exhibitions, multi-media presentations, lectures and on the Internet. The official project Web site can be found at [http://www.extremeicesurvey.org www.extremeicesurvey.org] . (See also [http://www.jamesbalog.com www.jamesbalog.com] )

Locations

The Extreme Ice Survey team has installed 26 time-lapse cameras in numerous sites across the Northern Hemisphere. Guided by the recommendations of glaciologists, the Extreme Ice Survey team deployed its cameras at accessible and photogenic sites that represented regional conditions well and had high scientific value. There are 15 camera placements spread throughout Greenland, Iceland, Alaska, the Rocky Mountains and British Columbia, as well as a dozen positions for annual repeat photography in Iceland, the Alps and Bolivia.

Methodology

Extreme Ice Survey cameras are programmed to shoot once an hour, every hour of daylight, until late summer 2009. Each camera captures approximately 4,000 images per year for a total projected archive of more than 300,000 photographs by completion of the survey. Camera sites are accessed via foot, horseback, dogsled, skis, fishing boats and helicopters. Downloads of digital images occur as frequently as once a month to as rarely as once a year, depending on the accessibility of the site. The images will be edited into video and slide shows that reveal the speed with which climate change is transforming the earth.

The Extreme Ice Survey team is careful to gather data over a multi-year period. By capturing images in diverse locations throughout the Northern Hemisphere, the Survey is able to provide a more complete picture of the effect of global warming across different geographic regions than previous ground-based, time-lapse studies.

Equipment

The Extreme Ice Survey uses Nikon D-200 digital single lens reflex cameras powered by a custom-made combination of solar panels, batteries and other electronics. The operational health of certain cameras is monitored on a daily basis via an Iridium satellite uplink system designed and built exclusively for the Extreme Ice Survey by the [http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/index.cfm Jet Propulsion Laboratory] in Pasadena, Calif. Batteries will provide power during nights and overcast days. To compensate for dramatic swings in daylight hours at different times of the year, the Extreme Ice Survey team constructed customized intervalometers to trigger the cameras.

The cameras are protected by waterproof and dustproof [http://www.pelican.com/ Pelican cases] . The cameras are mounted on [http://www.bogenimaging.us/Jahia/ Bogen] tripod heads and secured against the arctic and alpine winds by a complex system of aluminum and steel anchors, and stainless steel aircraft cable guy wires. Each configuration weights 70 pounds or more. The setups must withstand winds as fast as 170 mph, temperatures as low as -40°F, blizzards, landslides, torrential rain and avalanches.

Field work timeline

*December 2006 – April 2007: Engineer and construct time-lapse cameras
*March 2007: Deploy cameras in Iceland
*May 2007: Deploy cameras in Alaska
*June 2007: Deploy cameras in Greenland and the Northwest United States
*September 2007: Deploy cameras in the Alps
*Fall 2007: Download all cameras except Greenland
*Spring 2008: Return to as many sites as possible to check damage from winter. Download surviving images and repair equipment
*Late Summer/Fall 2008: Return to a variety of camera sites and download pictures
*Late Summer 2009: Download images and clear cameras and supports from field

James Balog

For the last 25 years, nature photojournalist James Balog has consistently broken new ground in the art of photographing the outdoors. His images have received international acclaim, including the Leica Medal of Excellence and the premier awards for both nature and science photography at "World Press Photo" in Amsterdam. Exhibitions of his images have been shown at more than a hundred museums and galleries from Greece to Paris, New York to Los Angeles. He was the first photographer ever commissioned to create a series of stamps for the U.S. Postal Service; the 1996 release featured America’s endangered wildlife. Balog’s work has been published in numerous major magazines, including "National Geographic", "The New Yorker", "Life", "Vanity Fair", "The New York Times Magazine", "Audubon" and "Outside". He is a contributing editor for "National Geographic Adventure", where he was featured in an October 2007 article about his efforts with the Extreme Ice Survey. Balog is the author of six books: "Wildlife Requiem" (1984), "Survivors: A New Vision of Endangered Wildlife" (1990), "Anima" (1993), "James Balog’s Animals A to Z" (1996), "Animal" (1999) and "Tree: A New Vision of the American Forest" (2004). The documentary film, “A Redwood Grows in Brooklyn,” explores his thoughts about art, nature and perception.

In addition to his photographic credentials, Balog holds a master’s degree in geomorphology from the University of Colorado. His approach to nature photojournalism combines his analytical scientific background with an artistic eye and progressive methodology.

Extreme Ice survey partners

Research team

*Dr. Jason Box – Researcher at the Ohio State University Byrd Polar Research Center and assistant professor of geography at Ohio State. Byrd was a contributing author of “Climate Change 2007,” the report for which the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and Vice President Al Gore were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Since 1994, Box has completed 14 expeditions to the Greenland ice sheet. An authority on the relationship between Greenland glaciers and the earth’s climate, he writes the Greenland entry for the American Meteorological Society’s annual “State of the Climate” report.
*Dr. Daniel B. Fagre – Ecologist and climate change research coordinator for the U.S. Geological Survey in Glacier National Park, Montana. With a background in wildlife biology and ecology, Fagre has a unique perspective on the broad changes being produced by global warming. He has been doing repeat photography on the dwindling ice masses of Glacier National Park for nearly two decades. Fagre is the author of the 2007 book, "Sustaining Rocky Mountain Landscapes: Science, Policy and Management of the Crown of the Continent Ecosystem".
*Dr. Tad Pfeffer – Researcher at the [http://instaar.colorado.edu/ Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research] and professor of civil, environmental and architectural engineering at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Pfeffer’s research includes studies of the mechanics and dynamics of glaciers, and heat and mass transfer in snow. He has worked on glaciers for 30 years, including two decades of field work on Alaska’s Columbia Glacier. Pfeffer does extensive work with photography and photogrammetry of glaciers and landscapes, using the imagery to describe and analyze glacier changes. Pfeffer’s photography has appeared in numerous scientific publications, as well as "American Scientist", "GEO" (Germany) and " [http://www.geotimes.org/current/ Geotimes] " magazines, BBC television productions, special exhibitions and in both the movie and book "An Inconvenient Truth", by Al Gore.

Scientific advisory board

*Dr. Mark Fahnestock, University of New Hampshire
*Dr. Martin Truffer, University of Alaska
*Dr. Neil Humphrey, University of Wyoming
*Dr. Bernard Francou, [http://www.ird.fr/us/ Institut de Recherche pour le Développement] , Quito, Ecuador
*Dr. Jan Joughin, [http://psc.apl.washington.edu/pscweb2002/homepage.html Polar Science Center] , University of WashingtonOddur Sigurdsson, President, Icelandic Glaciological Society
*Dr. Konrad Steffen, Director, [http://cires.colorado.edu/ Cooperative Institute for Research in the Environmental Sciences (CIRES)] , University of Colorado

Sponsors

The Extreme Ice Survey is funded by prominent research and scientific organizations, as well as several corporate partners.

Patrons

*NASA
* [http://www.nationalgeographic.com/field/grants-programs/expeditions-council.html National Geographic Expeditions Council]
*National Science Foundation
*Nikon
* [http://www.leopard.com/site/home/index.asp Leopard Communications]

Corporate partners

* [http://www.bogenimaging.us/Jahia/ Bogen Imaging]
*Panasonic
* [http://www.pelican.com/ Pelican Products]
*The North Face
* [http://www.rudyproject.com/ Rudy Project]

See also

*Alaska
*Alps
*Bolivia
*British Columbia
*Climate change
*Geomorphology
*Glacier National Park
*Global warming
*Greenland
*Greenland Ice Sheet
*Iceland
*Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
*Rocky Mountains
*time-lapse photography

External links

* [http://www.extremeicesurvey.org Extreme Ice Survey]
* [http://www.agu.org/ American Geophysical Union]
* [http://www.bogenimaging.us/Jahia/ Bogen Imaging]
* [http://cires.colorado.edu/ Cooperative Institute for Research in the Environmental Sciences]
* [http://www.extremeicesurvey.org/ Extreme Ice Survey]
* [http://jamesbalog.com/pages/home.php James Balog Photography]
* [http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/index.cfm Jet Propulsion Laboratory]
* [http://www.jorfi.is/english.htm Icelandic Glaciological Society]
* [http://www.ird.fr/us/ Institut de Recherche pour le Développement]
* [http://instaar.colorado.edu/ Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research]
* [http://www.ipcc.ch/ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change]
* [http://science.nationalgeographic.com/science/environment/global-warming/big-thaw.html "National Geographic" magazine, “The Big Thaw”]
* [http://www.nationalgeographic.com/adventure/ "National Geographic Adventure" magazine, “Portrait of a Meltdown”]
* [http://www.pelican.com/ Pelican Products]
* [http://psc.apl.washington.edu/pscweb2002/homepage.html Polar Science Center]
* [http://www.rudyproject.com/ Rudy Project]
* [http://glaciology.ethz.ch/messnetz/ Swiss Glacier Monitoring Network]
* [http://www.usgs.gov/ U.S Geological Survey]