The Earth Story

brunocazariniphotography A short film by @brunocazariniphotography. Nothing cutter than a Penguin!. For more expedition...

Brisk. 

Glacier from a drone Snapped by an expedition near K2, these photos were taken using the reconnaissance drone that they brought along to plan their routes. The photo was snapped near the head of one of the world's largest glaciers outside the Polar Regions, Baltoro. Some 63 km in length, it slides down the gradient of the Karakorum mountains in the Gilgit-Baltistan region of Pakistan. Four 8000 metre peaks culminate within a 20km radius, making this area one of the rooves of the world. Loz Image credit: David Kaszlikowski http://bit.ly/1OSjM8T

The melting cryosphere Most of the worlds glaciers and ice caps are shrinking at an astonishing rate (compared to the worst case predictions being made just a few years ago), and a variety of projects have showcased this fact. This pair of photos released by NASA shows the changes in the 45 years between August 1960 and 2005 (August 16, 1960 9.00 am and August 18, 2005 at 9.10 am respectively) on the iconic Matterhorn (aka Cervino, whose geology we covered in depth at http://on.fb.me/1fVu9MR) sited on the Swiss/Italian border.

Stream of Ice

The views the Landsat satellites get of Antarctica’s Byrd Glacier are really incredible. The glacier flows from bottom to top in this image orientation, draining ice from a higher part of the Polar Plateau downslope to the Ross Ice Shelf.

That looks cold

Aerial views of ice bergs, sea ice, glaciers, fjords, and occasional rocks from a small area in Antarctica. So few people have ever seen this area for real!

This videographer focuses on the water features of Iceland - the waterfalls, braided streams, oceans, lakes, and steaming hot springs.

Malaspina Glacier Malaspina Glacier in southeastern Alaska is the quintessential illustration of a piedmont glacier. In fact, it is the world’s largest piedmont glacier — almost 65 kilometers wide and up to 45 kilometers long from the mountains to the edge of the sea. Piedmont glaciers are wide and bulb-shaped lobes that form when moving glaciers confined by mountain valleys spread out into a broad, flat plain. 

During the Siberian Winter, the surface of Lake Baikal freezes completely shut, and stress building up in the ice causes it to crack. These cracks cross cut the ice, and re-form every year. This 360 degree Drone Video lets you fly over the landscape and spin around, seeing this amazing site all over the frozen surface.

How do ice cores preserve temperature records? Cores drilled through the icecaps in Greenland and Antarctica are our best records of the climate over the last 800,000 years. The best cores literally have 1 band of ice per year, so the ice in each core can be precisely dated. The chemistry of the ice can then show whether there were glaciers present or not….but how do geochemists do that?

The Franz Josef glacier on New Zealand's west coast has been rapidly retreating over the last 10 years. This timelapse clip captures its motion and the retreating position/ablation of its terminus.

Warming Earth, Warming Atmosphere This image is one you might see commonly during the winter, showing the difference between types of freezing and wet precipitation. If there is warm air near the surface, generally precipitation hits the ground as rain, while cold air near the surface allows it to snow or sleet. Even outside of winter storms, the same phenomenon occurs; high in the atmosphere, water is frozen as ice particles, but closer to the surface everything melts to become rain. Over the time where there are solid weather records, the surface of the Earth has warmed by just over 1°C.