Ice has become the canary in the coal mine and thus a symbol of climate change on a warming planet. In this series of sequences, I have photographed both sea ice and glacial ice (icebergs). The diminishing amount of arctic sea ice provides further evidence of a warming earth. Glacial ice, which is frozen fresh water from densely compacted snowfall over millennia, dramatically adds to sea level rise as it comes off the land and calves into the sea from glaciers. Sadly, the tipping points have passed and the ice will continue to rapidly melt.
Didactic Ice
Had I taken these photographic sequences of ice twenty or more years ago they would have been predominantly about form and color, abstraction and distortion, landscape and remoteness, space and motion, time and transition. Indeed, all these elements have greatly motivated me and the theme of transition is something I have explored to varying degrees in almost all my work. But now there is an additional, urgent underlying message that is attached. Ice has become the canary in the coal mine and thus a symbol of climate change on a warming planet.
Scientists observe and measure the amounts of sea ice and the depth of ice sheets at the polar regions of both the Arctic and Antarctic to determine how quickly the earth’s ice is melting. Melting ice sheets, such as those on Greenland and Antarctica, are great cause for concern. Sea levels are rising at an alarming rate. Retreating glaciers worldwide place an exclamation point on these observations.
For these very same reasons, many artists have been drawn to ice as a subject. In this series of sequences, I have photographed both sea ice and glacial ice - more commonly known as icebergs. The former, which is sea water that freezes in winter and melts in summer, does not add to sea level rise.
However, the diminishing amount of sea ice provides further evidence of an earth which is warming more rapidly than was predicted just a few years ago. Glacial ice, which is frozen fresh water from densely compacted snowfall over millennia, does add to sea level rise as it comes off the land and calves into the sea from glaciers. Sadly, the tipping points have passed and the ice will continue melt. The only remaining question is – how fast?