In 2007 photojournalist James Balog, who shot the image featured in the magazine's August photo spread ("Lakes on Ice," by Sid Perkins), gathered a team of scientists, photographers and filmmakers to launch the Extreme Ice Survey. The project, one of the most ambitious photographic glacial surveys ever undertaken, documents changes in the ice formations using dozens of time-lapse cameras placed at 18 sites around the world, including Greenland, Iceland and the Nepalese Himalayas. The photos in this slide show come from the forthcoming book Ice: Portraits of Vanishing Glaciers (Rizzoli, September 2012), by Balog and the Extreme Ice Survey team.

View the Vanishing Glaciers slide show

3 Comments

1. 1. eddiequest 08:09 AM 7/18/12

   I am having trouble finding out where all the heat will go, once the ice is gone. I'm guessing the next relatively cold body would be the ocean. But it will not pull as much heat out of the air as the ice did. This, to me, would suggest a mass exodus from the equatorial area would be in order. Does anyone know of a link to any models that predict heat transfer when the ice is gone?

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2. 2. Chris G in reply to eddiequest 06:02 PM 7/18/12

   Actually, the increase in heat content of the oceans is far larger than what would be needed to melt the ice thus far. The phase change energy is significant, but is pretty small in the larger picture.
   
   http://www.skepticalscience.com/how-do-we-know-global-warming-is-still-happening.html

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3. 3. Mark656515 in reply to eddiequest 10:14 AM 7/23/12

   When the ice is all gone we will have shifted to a World Tropic as in the Mesozoic, with far higher coastlines. The world’s weather has oscillated from the current 15 degree average to a 25 degree average. The tropics will not become inhabitable, but there will have to be massive city-building to relocate currently coastal populations, and probably massive desalinization – irrigation programs to deal with drought. Big Oil should pay the bill.
   
   All or most of the technology for a clean, sustainable economy is already in place; it is a matter of (massive) public political pressure:
   
   See the fine documentaries:
   
   Who Killed the Electric Car
   http://www.movie2k.to/Who-Killed-the-Electric-Car-watch-movie-780880.html
   
   and
   Why We Fight
   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TO7-GBRx1xM
   
   
   
   
   

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