Documentary Description
"Extreme Ice" follows National Geographic-funded photojournalist James
Balog to some of the most dangerous places on Earth as he documents the
disappearance of an icy landscape that took thousands of years to form.
An artist, scientist, explorer, and former mountain guide, Balog braved
treacherous terrain to site his cameras in ideal locations to record the
unfolding frozen drama.
The program charts the progress of Balog's Extreme Ice Survey (EIS),
the largest photographic study ever attempted of the cryosphere, the
mantle of ice that covers large portions of the Earth and that plays a
critical role in weather. The effort involves deploying 26 time-lapse
cameras in alpine and arctic locations across the Northern Hemisphere
and programming them to shoot a frame every daylight hour for three
years.
As the program shows, the resulting time-lapse movies give
breathtaking evidence of geology in action. Ominously, the proverbial
glacial pace of large masses of ice is no longer as slow as it once was,
due to the warming of the planet that is accelerating the break-up of
these titanic structures, including the separation of a Rhode
Island-sized piece of the Antarctic ice sheet in 2002. Scientists are
overwhelmingly convinced that the temperature increase is tied to the
rise in greenhouse-gas emissions caused by burning fossil fuels.
A NOVA-Nat Geo film crew accompanies Balog to EIS locations around
the world. In Alaska, Balog records the rapid retreat of the Columbia
Glacier, one of the largest ocean-feeding glaciers in North America (see
photo at right). Amazingly, the calving of such glaciers is so frequent
that wetsuit-clad surfers sometimes paddle nearby, waiting for an
avalanche of ice to generate massive waves for a wild ride. Later, in
Iceland, Balog photographs exquisitely sculpted icebergs on the beach,
the last stop in their natural journey from the interior out to sea.
Most dramatically of all, in Greenland the award-winning photographer
explores a landscape as magnificent as the canyon country of
Utah—except carved in solid ice. Lowering himself by rope into a giant
hole in the ice sheet bored out by a torrent of meltwater, Balog finds
himself in a world of surpassing beauty, scientific mystery, and maximum
peril.
Among the scientists featured in "Extreme Ice" are Richard Alley of
Pennsylvania State University, along with Tad Pfeffer and Jim White,
both of the University of Colorado at Boulder.
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