Just ran into this... the largest ice calving event ever recorded on video! You have to see it to believe it and after that your world will neve...

Taxonomy

• Glacier
• Climate Change

2 Comments

1. Thanks so much for sharing Stefan...truly awe inspiring!

2. If only the scientists would spend as much time spray painting ice bereft rock white. For example the Gorner Glacier in Switzerland is receding partly because the bordering rock is 18C warmer than it needs to be to keep the ice volume constant. Rather than hire a helicopter and painting crew, scientists prefer even more words. Here in this imaging if the foreground was painted with the alkaline white paint which is potentially abundant and inexpensive more of the sunlight would be reflected, or if solar assisted shading frames covered the cracks in the ice in the hotter months, more ice would stay as it is.

   3 Comment replies

   1. here a nice article about the Andes glaciers. One aspect that melts the glaciers is that because of a warmer world the snow is replaced by rain accelerating melt. It's a true complex interaction too complex for paint alone - http://www.popsci.com/la-paz-without-water#page-22

   2. Some Peruvian upland farmers are restoring their glaciers by painting the rocks white. They are doing this because they need the water continuity for their animals. I have not heard the statement not to do something because it is too expensive to do everything before. Where did that come from ? 

   3. Interesting thought - but scalability? You'd have to paint everything and keep it white....  Just read this idea about putting 10.000 windmills on the Northpole to pump water onto the ice so it will freeze in winter. But... at a cost of 750 billion US ( http://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/Could-10000-Wind-Powered-Water-Pumps-Save-The-Arctic-Cap-From-Melting.html )