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. 追寻消逝的冰川 CNN
阿尔卑斯山脉，格陵兰岛以及喜马拉雅山脉上正在融化的冰川冰作为一份生动的影音文献，记录着我们的地球气候正在如何变化。
美国的环境摄影师詹姆士·巴洛格用了超过六年的时间去记录和保存这一景象。
2005年，完成国家地理杂志在冰岛的拍摄任务后，他被所发生的变化所震惊，想办法来捕捉北极地区和世界上其他有冰川存在的地方正在发生的这一切。
成果也同时成就了一部新的纪录片--“逐冰”，基于36部定时相机在阿拉斯加，玻利维亚，加拿大，法国，格陵兰，冰岛，尼泊尔，落基山脉和瑞士等地16处冰川的拍摄成果。白天，每一部相机每隔半小时成像一次，总共拍摄了近一百万张照片。
洛格说将这些记录整合在一起后，他对气候变化最初所持的怀疑态度已经彻底改变了。
摄影师捕获了冰川的后退：“我们对所看到的感到非常震惊。我从没想过变化会如此地大。每次我们打开这些相机的后壳，都会像这样‘哇噢！这就是刚发生的。’”
影片中的某处，巴洛克看着从其中一部相机中取出的记忆卡并说道：“这是对景观的记录，这处景观现在已经不复存在，且不会再出现于人类文明的历史中。”
在他所拍摄的地方中，北极地区近些年
来受到了最多的关注。今年9月，冰盖高度下降到了记载的最低范围。据美国国家冰雪数据中心所采集的数据显示：每个冬季冰盖都会增长，但在夏季总是更进一步
地后退。自1979年开始对冰雪的监测，夏季的冰范围以每十年13%的面积下降。
环境科学家最初预测，北极地区的冰范围在2100年的夏季将降为零。然而，最近加速的冰雪消逝使一些人相信这个时间可能会提早。
尽管冰川的融化在人类的历史中发生过很多次，但巴洛格认为他现在所记录的无法再被认为是一个自然过程。
“我们所看到的是很高程度的变化加速，尤其是在过去的40年左右中，科学家们清晰地追踪到了大气中的二氧化碳，甲烷和一氧化二氮的排放。”
“在过去的100年中，大气中聚积了比过去的一百万年间最高值还要多40%的二氧化碳。”
“在过去的一百万年间，大气中二氧化碳排放量的最高值在280-290ppm（百万分之280-百万分之290）。现在，排放量为395ppm且每年仍在增加。这已经不再是自然的过程 并影响着整个地球”他说。
巴洛格生活在科罗拉多州，落基山脉，近博尔德，他认为减缓气候变化影响的经济和技术解决方案已经存在。
他说道：“我们所需要的是对于这些变化真实性、紧迫性更多的政治和公众理解。我相信这部纪录片通过告诉人们这样一个真实且正在发生的故事可以帮助扭转大众的态度”
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