Ice and Glaciers

Drangajökull Glacier

And how do icebergs get that blue color anyways?

And to the right hand side of us was this great Khumbu Glacier.

But anyway, off to the world of ice.

And the same glacier today.

The one glacier up in Greenland that puts more ice into the global ocean than all the other glaciers in the northern hemisphere combined is the Ilulissat Glacier.

But this understates the seriousness of this particular problem because it doesn't show the thickness of the ice.

And so I actually live in Canada now, so I've been visiting one of my local glaciers.

They're going to get to land.

This lake has been formed in the last couple of years because of the melting of the glacier.

This is an aerial picture we did this year.

Late glacial period, I assume.

This is before they were separated

This is a view of base camp.

This is what one of our cameras saw over the course of a few months.

So, here's another time lapse shot of Columbia.

At the end of the Iast ice age, as the Iast glacier was receding from North America, the ice melted and a giant pool of fresh water formed in North America.

They actually have these buses that drive up and over the lateral moraine and drop people off on the surface of the glacier.

The glacier moves but by inches.

This is Argentina 20 years ago. Same glacier today.

Icebergs are born when they calve off of glaciers or break off of ice shelves.

And so kind of thinking about scale, my most recent obsession is actually with glaciers of course.

The glaciers are actually leaving us.

Icecaps are melting, war in the Middle East,

As you see, it expands to the dark blue that's the annual ice in winter, and it contracts in summer.

Unlike sea ice or pack ice, which form when the ocean freezes, glaciers are made of fresh water.

There is a custom made computer that tells the camera when to fire.

This is the present day era, and that's the Iast ice age.

When it comes to Europe, let's set the scene a little bit.

like air is being let out of a balloon.

In Asia and Australia, there's lots of fascinating stuff, but I study the Ice Age, so it's what I know best.

Well, we were going into the worst part of the last ice age.

That's equal to 20 feet of sea level, as is Greenland.

That's outside Antarctica.

Another friend, Lonnie Thompson, studies glaciers.

That's the second and third ice age back.

Here's Lonnie with a last sIiver of one of the once mighty glaciers.

It was during the ice age that the saber toothed tiger became extinct.

They're photographable. They're measurable.

And it's a shame 'cause these glaciers are so beautiful.

One day, I still remember... the glacier melted, and the icebergs drifted to the north.

The glacier moves but by inches.

And there's a volcano behind, which has glaciers at the very top.

I'll show you one of those in a second.