global warming

I first came to Antarctica twenty years ago, as part of an international team intent on dog sledding across the continent. Since then, I’ve been back more than a dozen times; last season for nearly three months, much of that time traveling the length of the six hundred mile long Peninsula by sailboat and kayak, the rocky finger jutting into the Southern Ocean from the continent. Unlike many of the most veteran of Antarctic aficionados I’ve had the good fortune to get to know both the stark, forbidding interior of the continent, as well as parts of its glacier-lined coastline.

Photo copyright Fiona Stewart

What I’ve learned is that every summer season – roughly December through February – is vastly different here. And every day is vastly different too. What is not changing is that during the past fifty years, most noticeably during the past decade, air temperatures along the Peninsula have warmed more than anywhere on the planet. The impacts of warmer temperatures are evidenced everywhere, from loss of ice cover to changing wildlife habits. The ability to take a close-up look at that evolution is a great chance for me.

This morning I spent the morning among the Yalour Islands, near the northern end of the Grand Didier Channel, zipping by Zodiac around icebergs of a variety of shapes and sizes. Initially the skies were bright and blue, the first such we’ve seen in a few days. Actually, the last blue skies were accompanied by hurricane winds, which blew every cloud in the sky out of the way. But as is typical for Antarctica, things changed rapidly today as a fast-moving snow squall blotted the sun and turned the idyllic scene quickly more ominous, a whiteout, impossible to see the shoreline.

We passed through these islands eleven months ago by kayak and the difference today is dramatic. Because we were going to travel along the Peninsula by kayak last January, for many months I had started each morning checking out http://www.polarview.aq/and its satellite images of Antarctica’s ice.

Each year more than seven millions square miles of sea ice freezes around the continent, growing the continent to twice the size of the U.S. And each year that pack ice breaks up and melts in different patterns and stages dependent on how warm the temperatures are, how big are the winds. Thanks to a colder-than-usual winter last year the continent was ringed by frozen sea ice until late in January, even the Peninsula, which is generally the first Antarctic region to lose its ice.

By comparison, this season the Peninsula is amazingly clear of pack ice, less than anyone can remember seeing.

Perhaps most telling: Yesterday at Cuverville Island, on a rocky, north-facing slope we spied something very new to Antarctica: Grass. About twenty feet off the sea, two small patches of just-greening herb sprouted, fed by summer sun and warming air temperatures, clear evidence the Peninsula is warming.

- Jon Bowermaster

National Geographic writer, filmmaker and adventurer Jon Bowermaster has spent the last 20 years exploring remote corners of the globe and documenting his experiences for a variety of national and international magazines, as well as in his own books and documentary films.  Updates on Jon’s Antarctic adventures can be found on his own blog, and we’ll be following him here on Earthkeepers as well.

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The Extreme Ice Survey (EIS) was established in 2006 by internationally acclaimed nature photojournalist James Balog.  Comprised of 26 time-lapse cameras positioned at 15 glaciers in Greenland, Iceland, Alaska, the Alps and Colorado’s Rocky Mountains, EIS aims to provide a startling photographic record of melting glaciers – one of the most visually dramatic indicators of climate change.

These icebergs were calved from Greenland’s Jakobshavn Glacier, which sends 11 cubic miles of ice into the ocean each year.  Photo courtesy of Nationalgeographic.com.

The cameras will shoot once an hour for every hour of daylight until the project’s completion in fall 2009, when EIS plans to publish a book, followed by a feature documentary film.  In the interim, EIS team members return to the field periodically to download images – like those shown here — which can be viewed on the EIS website.

James Balog is widely considered a visionary in the art of photographing nature and wildlife.  True to form, the images he and the EIS team are capturing of the real-time impact of global warming are both breathtaking and thought–provoking.

An iceberg drifts in Columbia Bay near Valdez, Alaska. The source of this iceberg, the Columbia Glacier, has lost more than 10 miles of ice since 1984.  Photo courtesy of Nationalgeographic.com.

Balog will be speaking about his work next month during Timberland’s Dig It event – a four-city tour that combines community service (in the form of urban greening) and the celebration of environmental activism, all in one day.  Dig It debuts in Boston on October 1, followed by events in New York (October 4), Los Angeles (October 11), and San Francisco (October 18).

To learn more about the Extreme Ice Survey, visit the EIS website (don’t miss the video clip of one of the largest glacial calvings ever documented on video – truly remarkable).  And, while we’ll be sharing more information about Dig It in the coming weeks, you can learn more and sign up to participate in one of the events by clicking here.

Taking action to create a positive impact on the environment doesn’t have to include tree planting or recycling or driving a hybrid car. The act of raising awareness around the issue of global warming – in a compelling and provocative way – can be just as powerful.

Michael Sheridan is a documentary filmmaker and experimental videosonic artist whose recent work Instant Noodles addresses the crisis of deforestation and the palm oil industry in Indonesia. His work reminds us that there are as many avenues for expressing environmental consciousness as there are individuals in the world – and that the inspirational nature of art is boundless.

Below, Michael shares his thoughts about the creation of Instant Noodles as a means of instigating fresh perspectives on everyday life, and encouraging personal behavior change.

When I arrived in Indonesia in August of 2007, I was already committed to producing new artwork for two exhibitions in the United States. In December I finished a new installation sound piece, This is Foreign for the Axiom Gallery and in January a new videosonic work Instant Noodles.

Instant Noodles was part of the exhibition Greed, Guilt and Grappling-Six Artists Respond to Global Warming at the Mills Gallery, Boston Center for the Arts. Mags Harries and Clara Wainwright, the artist-curators of the exhibition, asked me last year if I would be interested in participating. I thought it would be an excellent opportunity to ground my new explorations in Indonesia – a country I frankly knew very little about. Read the rest of this entry »

In the spirit of Earthkeeping, we would like to share the following overview developed from Stop Global Warming.org that highlights the realities of global warming. StopGlobalWarming.org aptly communicates that the most important step towards reversing the current trend is to first understand we are all contributors to global warming and therefore, we all need to be part of the solution.

The results are in and the reality of global warming is beyond dispute or debate. It’s not just an environmental issue. It affects our public health and national security. It’s an urgent matter of survival for everyone on the planet — the most urgent threat facing humanity today.

Global warming isn’t opinion. It’s a scientific reality. And the science tells us that human activity has made enormous impacts to our planet that affect our well-being and even our survival as a species.

The world’s leading science journals report that glaciers are melting ten times faster than previously thought, that atmospheric greenhouse gases have reached levels not seen for millions of years, and that species are vanishing as a result of climate change. They also report of extreme weather events, long-term droughts, and rising sea levels.

Fortunately, the science also tells us how we can begin to make significant repairs to try and reverse those impacts.

Read the rest of this entry »