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POn a cliff above Helheim Glacier in Greenland, I try to call my wife in New York with a satellite phone. Before I can leave a message, an explosion breaks the silence of the Arctic.
More explosions follow.
I cross a muddy tundra in front of a video camera installed on a tripod overlooking the glacier and rips the trash bag I used to protect it. I hit the record as fast as I can focus.
The bright sounds turn into a low rumble. Over the next half-hour, the ice breaks up and a four-mile-wide block collapses into the sea according to a process called calving – a phenomenon rarely observed on this scale.
As a Reuters photographer, I captured the erupting volcanoes, the aftermath of hurricanes and tornadoes and the war, but I never felt so small. It was a poignant end to a multi-month project on climate change in Greenland.
The idea was to follow scientists conducting climate research. They have the computer power to understand global warming for only a few decades and the numbers are sobering. But where do the data come from?
To find out, we turned to a team of scientists from Iceland, affiliated with a NASA project called Oceans Melting Greenland. They aim to understand how the warming of the oceans melts the ice of the island from below.
We also spent time with New York University oceanographer David Holland, who was involved in a separate research project and also attended the calving of the Helheim Glacier.
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Meltwater ponds at the top of Helheim Glacier near Tasiilaq
Reuters
2/20
Safety officer Brian Rougeux collaborates with student Febin Magar in assembling a radar dome while working in a science camp located on the side of the Helheim Glacier.
Reuters
3/20
An iceberg floats in a fjord near the town of Tasiilaq
Reuters
4/20
The aircraft mechanic, David Fuller, left, is working with a local employee to move a NASA Gulfstream III during a pre-flight inspection before a flight to support the Oceans Melting Greenland research mission.
Reuters
5/20
Meltwater ponds at the top of Helheim Glacier
Reuters
6/20
NASA Earth Sciences Flight Program Director Eric Ianson looks at Greenland Ice Cap
Reuters
7/20
The glacial ice is seen from the window during the flight of NASA
Reuters
8/20
The science camp of the oceanographer David Holland at the edge of the Helheim Glacier
Reuters
9/20
An iceberg floats in a fjord near the town of Tasiilaq
Reuters
10/20
A large crevice forms near the calving front of Helheim Glacier
Reuters
11/20
Safety officer Brian Rougeux uses a drill to install scientific instrument antennas that will be left over the Helheim Glacier
Reuters
12/20
Tabular icebergs float in Sermilik Fiord after a large calving event at Helheim Glacier
Reuters
13/20
Ron Muellerschoen, radar engineer, monitors data collection inside a Gulfstream III of NASA flying over Greenland to measure losses in the country's ice sheet
Reuters
14/20
GPS tracking equipment is left on the Helheim Glacier
REUTERS
15/20
The sun illuminates the Helheim Glacier
Reuters
16/20
A glacial terminus over the east coast of Greenland
REUTERS
17/20
A student, Febin Magar, looks at burnt wood in a research camp
Reuters
18/20
Tabular icebergs float in Sermilik Fiord after large calving event
Reuters
19/20
The oceanographer David Holland repairs a broken GPS module in his research camp
Reuters
20/20
An iceberg floats in a fjord near the town of Tasiilaq
Reuters
1/20
Meltwater ponds at the top of Helheim Glacier near Tasiilaq
Reuters
2/20
Safety officer Brian Rougeux collaborates with student Febin Magar in assembling a radar dome while working in a science camp located on the side of the Helheim Glacier.
Reuters
3/20
An iceberg floats in a fjord near the town of Tasiilaq
Reuters
4/20
The aircraft mechanic, David Fuller, left, is working with a local employee to move a NASA Gulfstream III during a pre-flight inspection before a flight to support the Oceans Melting Greenland research mission.
Reuters
5/20
Meltwater ponds at the top of Helheim Glacier
Reuters
6/20
NASA Earth Sciences Flight Program Director Eric Ianson looks at Greenland Ice Cap
Reuters
7/20
The glacial ice is seen from the window during the flight of NASA
Reuters
8/20
The science camp of the oceanographer David Holland at the edge of the Helheim Glacier
Reuters
9/20
An iceberg floats in a fjord near the town of Tasiilaq
Reuters
10/20
A large crevice forms near the calving front of Helheim Glacier
Reuters
11/20
Safety officer Brian Rougeux uses a drill to install scientific instrument antennas that will be left over the Helheim Glacier
Reuters
12/20
Tabular icebergs float in Sermilik Fiord after a large calving event at Helheim Glacier
Reuters
13/20
Ron Muellerschoen, radar engineer, monitors data collection inside a Gulfstream III of NASA flying over Greenland to measure losses in the country's ice sheet
Reuters
14/20
GPS tracking equipment is left on the Helheim Glacier
REUTERS
15/20
The sun illuminates the Helheim Glacier
Reuters
16/20
A glacial terminus over the east coast of Greenland
REUTERS
17/20
A student, Febin Magar, looks at burnt wood in a research camp
Reuters
18/20
Tabular icebergs float in Sermilik Fiord after large calving event
Reuters
19/20
The oceanographer David Holland repairs a broken GPS module in his research camp
Reuters
20/20
An iceberg floats in a fjord near the town of Tasiilaq
Reuters
I am aware of the magnitude of this work aboard a NASA search aircraft with senior scientist Joshua Willis and other scientists, at 12,192 meters, to observe the weather. seemingly infinite white horizon of the Greenland icecap.
The banks and loops of the plane stand above the steep cliffs and rock faces of East Greenland that are slowly crumbling under the action of the river. Immense glaciers.
I joined the NASA team for a week in March in Keflavik, Iceland. Every day, we took off icy tracks and flew over the coast of Greenland. Scientists Tim Miller, Ron Muellerschoen and David Austerberry collected on their computers a seemingly endless stream of numbers, symbols and letters from radar data on glacier formations.
NYU Holland has been studying Helheim and another glacier called Jakobshavn for over ten years.
Last June, he visited the Helheim Glacier, near the seaside village of Tasiilaq, which has about 2,000 inhabitants. Remarkably, he has managed to become a tourist destination, a success with only two hotels, which sometimes serve whale meat.
Transportation here is limited to boat or helicopter in summer and dog sled in winter. In summer, the sun goes down only a few hours a day.
Holland collects data on seismic activity, temperature and wind, as well as accelerated images.
Both journalists and scientists, climate change is difficult to document. This occurs most often imperceptibly – an increase in temperature of one-tenth of a degree, a few inches of rain less, a layer of ice slowly melting.
That's why it was so overwhelming to see billions of tons of ice collapse once. Suddenly, that did not seem to be a minor or distant problem.
Reuters
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