Climate change can be hard to visualize, because it tends to happen at a relatively creeping pace, not in one dramatic surge, as Hollywood often likes to depict.

But new photos from NASA flights provide a fresh look at melting ice. For the past eight years, NASA has been flying Operation IceBridge missions in research planes over the poles, in order to gather more visual data on the impact of warming temperatures.

To help make this work more accessible to the public, in late October, photographer Mario Tama flew on three of NASA's IceBridge flights over Western Antarctica and the surrounding sea ice, leaving out of Punta Arenas, Chile. The trip was timed to coincide with the start of the melt season (spring) in the Southern Hemisphere.

The photos couldn't be more timely, since NASA and University of California, Irvine scientists have recently reported the fastest retreats of Western Antarctica's glaciers yet recorded.

Tune in to National Geographic's special new series on Antarctica, Continent 7, later this month.

A study published on October 25, drawing on IceBridge data, found that warm water is melting the undersides of the ice sheets. This could cause the large buttresses holding up vast amounts of ice to fail, leading to a rapid release of ice into the sea, along the lines of pancake batter flattening out.

If all the ice on the world's land melted it would raise sea level about 216 feet. Scientists have estimated melting all that ice could take 5,000 years, although the precise rate is hotly debated. How much the world is able to hold down carbon emissions will also strongly affect the rate of melting, scientists warn.

Flying in an "old, sturdy, beautifully reliable DC-8," Tama was most struck by the massive scale of the existing ice.

"Occasionally one could spot a seal or a penguin, but they were so tiny amidst the never-ending landscape that they were essentially impossible to photograph," he says.

"At times it really felt like a lunar mission, or a mission to Venus," says Tama. "The scenes, shapes, and sizes of the features in Antarctica were often otherworldly ... and just insanely, unimaginably beautiful."

NASA flight crew members work inside the cockpit of the Operation IceBridge DC-8 research airplane. Photograph by Mario Tama, Getty

Such a sea of ice had once covered North America during the last ice age, a reminder of how variable climate can be over time, and how just a few degrees in average temperature can make a huge difference in the landscape.

Tama says his goal was to "document this slice of the planet that is alien to most of us." He adds, "I hope my photographs will in some small way support the incredibly important work the scientists are doing. These folks are the heroes.

 

Antarctica's massive ice sheets are melting at a faster rate than ever, new studies find. Photograph by Mario Tama, Getty

 

Although climate change can be a scary topic, ice can be "insanely, unimaginably beautiful," says photographer Mario Tama.

 

Ice floats can be seen just off the coast of West Antarctica. Photograph by Mario Tama, Getty

 

In Antarctica, it can be hard to tell where the land starts and (frozen) water begins. Photograph by Mario Tama, Getty

 

Tama said he hadn't ever planned to visit the far south, but he was struck by what he saw. Photograph by Mario Tama, Getty

 

It can be hard to get a sense of scale in such a vast place, Tama says.  Photograph by Mario Tama, Getty

 Bransfield Island is one of many off the cold coast. Photograph by Mario Tama, Getty

 The IceBridge work comes at the same time that the United Nations Environment Programme has released a report analyzing all the commitments that countries have made to address global warming, based on the agreement struck in Paris last year. The current commitments on the table will only put the world on track to keep average global warming at 3 degrees Celsius, the report warns, instead of the 2 degrees that countries had agreed would stave off the worst impacts of warming, such as rising seas and extreme weather.

“If we don’t start taking additional action now, we will grieve over the avoidable human tragedy,” Erik Solheim, chief of the UNEP, told the Guardian.

That tragedy could include flooded cities, inundation by saltwater of wells, extreme weather, and searing heat waves, among other impacts.

Representatives of most countries will be meeting to discuss implementation of the Paris climate agreement next week in Morocco, at a United Nations summit.

By Brian Clark Howard

Photographs by Mario Tama

PUBLISHED November 3, 2016

Brian Howard is a senior writer covering environment, science, technology, and other topics.

Follow Brian

twitter

linkedIn

source: http://www.nationalgeographic.com/

original story HERE

 

Get more of The Global Warming Blog. Bookmark this page and sign up for the blog’s free RSS Feed. Sign up for free Global Warming Blog by clicking here. You will automatically be emailed a regular summary of the latest global warming headlines. 

 

To learn about more about global warming, climate change or greenhouse gases as well as the causes, consequences, solutions, definitions, facts and tipping points related to these subjects, click here. 

 

To see our most current positions, opinions, comments, agreement or disagreement with this article, and/or possible criticisms related to the subjects or facts raised in the above article, click here.  Then look for those subjects in the navigation links at the top the page.

 

To sign a critical petition for declaring an international global warming State of Emergency, click  here!

To help do something about the climate change and global warming emergency, click here.

Sign up for our free Global Warming Blog by clicking here. (In your email, you will receive critical news, research, and the warning signs for the next global warming disaster.)

To share this blog post: Go to the Share button to the left below.