Chasing down the world's vanishing glaciers - CNN.com
(CNN) -- The
melting glacial ice in places like the Alps, Greenland and the Himalayas
is a dramatic visual document of how our planet's climate is changing.
For U.S.-based
environmental photographer James Balog, it is a vision he has spent more
than six years trying to record and preserve.
After an assignment
for National Geographic in Iceland in 2005, he was shocked by the
changes taking place and wanted to find a way to capture what was going
on, in the Arctic and glaciers elsewhere around the world.
The result has been a
new documentary film, "Chasing Ice, " based on 36 time-lapse cameras
looking at 16 different glaciers in locations in Alaska, Bolivia,
Canada, France, Greenland, Iceland, Nepal, the Rocky Mountains and
Switzerland. Each camera has been taking a photograph every half-an-hour
during daylight, producing almost one million pictures in total.
Balog says putting the documentary together has changed his initial skepticism about climate change.
Photographer captures
glacial retreat "What we've seen has been a complete shock. I never
really expected to see this magnitude of change. Every time we open the
backs of these cameras it's like 'wow, is that what's just happened.'"
At one point in the
film, Balog is shown looking at the memory card he has just removed from
a camera and saying: "This is a memory of a landscape. A landscape that
is now gone and will never be seen again in the history of
civilization."
Of all the places he
has filmed, it is the Arctic that has attracted most attention in recent
years. In September this year, the ice cap fell to its lowest extent on
record. It grows each winter but is retreating further and further
every summer, according to data collected by the U.S. National Snow and
Ice Data Center. The summer ice extent has declined by 13% each decade
since the ice was first monitored in 1979.
Climate scientists
have previously predicted the Arctic could lose almost all of its ice
cover in the summer months by 2100. However, the recent accelerated ice
losses have led some to believe that date could come much sooner.
While accepting that
glacial ice melting has happened many times before in human history,
Balog says what he is documenting now can no longer be considered a
natural process.
"What we're seeing is
a much more accelerated rate of change, especially in the past 40 years
or so and that has clearly been traced by scientists to the impact of
carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide emissions into the
atmosphere."
"In the past 100
years, the atmosphere has accumulated 40% more carbon dioxide in it than
had been seen in the peak over the past one million years.
"So, in the past one
million years the peak of carbon dioxide emissions in the atmosphere has
been 280-290 parts per million (ppm). We're now at 395 ppm and adding
more every year. It's gone beyond natural and is affecting the entire
world, " he says.
Balog, who lives in
the Rocky Mountains near Boulder, Colorado, believes the economic and
technological solutions to mitigate the impact of climate change already
exist.
"What we need is a
greater political and public understanding of the immediacy and reality
of these changes. I believe that this film can help shift public
perceptions by telling people a story that is real and happening now, "
he says. 追尋消逝的冰川 CNN
阿爾卑斯山脈，格陵蘭島以及喜馬拉雅山脈上正在融化的冰川冰作為一份生動的影音文獻，記錄著我們的地球氣候正在如何變化。
美國的環境攝影師詹姆士·巴洛格用了超過六年的時間去記錄和保存這一景象。
2005年，完成國家地理雜志在冰島的拍攝任務后，他被所發生的變化所震驚，想辦法來捕捉北極地區和世界上其他有冰川存在的地方正在發生的這一切。
成果也同時成就了一部新的紀錄片--“逐冰”，基于36部定時相機在阿拉斯加，玻利維亞，加拿大，法國，格陵蘭，冰島，尼泊爾，落基山脈和瑞士等地16處冰川的拍攝成果。白天，每一部相機每隔半小時成像一次，總共拍攝了近一百萬張照片。
洛格說將這些記錄整合在一起后，他對氣候變化最初所持的懷疑態度已經徹底改變了。
攝影師捕獲了冰川的后退：“我們對所看到的感到非常震驚。我從沒想過變化會如此地大。每次我們打開這些相機的后殼，都會像這樣‘哇噢！這就是剛發生的。’”
影片中的某處，巴洛克看著從其中一部相機中取出的記憶卡并說道：“這是對景觀的記錄，這處景觀現在已經不復存在，且不會再出現于人類文明的歷史中。”
在他所拍攝的地方中，北極地區近些年
來受到了最多的關注。今年9月，冰蓋高度下降到了記載的最低范圍。據美國國家冰雪數據中心所采集的數據顯示：每個冬季冰蓋都會增長，但在夏季總是更進一步
地后退。自1979年開始對冰雪的監測，夏季的冰范圍以每十年13%的面積下降。
環境科學家最初預測，北極地區的冰范圍在2100年的夏季將降為零。然而，最近加速的冰雪消逝使一些人相信這個時間可能會提早。
盡管冰川的融化在人類的歷史中發生過很多次，但巴洛格認為他現在所記錄的無法再被認為是一個自然過程。
“我們所看到的是很高程度的變化加速，尤其是在過去的40年左右中，科學家們清晰地追蹤到了大氣中的二氧化碳，甲烷和一氧化二氮的排放。”
“在過去的100年中，大氣中聚積了比過去的一百萬年間最高值還要多40%的二氧化碳。”
“在過去的一百萬年間，大氣中二氧化碳排放量的最高值在280-290ppm（百萬分之280-百萬分之290）。現在，排放量為395ppm且每年仍在增加。這已經不再是自然的過程 并影響著整個地球”他說。
巴洛格生活在科羅拉多州，落基山脈，近博爾德，他認為減緩氣候變化影響的經濟和技術解決方案已經存在。
他說道：“我們所需要的是對于這些變化真實性、緊迫性更多的政治和公眾理解。我相信這部紀錄片通過告訴人們這樣一個真實且正在發生的故事可以幫助扭轉大眾的態度”
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