Chasing Ice

Five years ago photographer James Balog collaborated on a National Geographic magazine story called The Big Thaw, documenting the retreat of the world’s glaciers in what has been the most popular National Geographic article on the environment since then. This led to further visual documentation and most recently a film called "Chasing Ice".

At the 2012 Sundance Film Festival, Chasing Ice won an award for cinematography, and it has received numerous accolades in other film festivals. In the film, Balog sends a couple of young videographers to Ilulissat, Greenland to monitor an iceberg in case it breaks off into the sea, an event scientists term calving. Balog explains how climatic events that typically occur on a geologic time scale are now observable on a human time scale.

The videographers camp out in a tent in extreme weather conditions for a couple of weeks before activity occurs. When it does, they witness the largest calving event in history ever caught on film. An iceberg the size of lower Manhattan falls off into the sea, an episode spectacular at the same time tragic. (Source: National Geographic Channel)