Barring extreme weather events like floods and hurricanes, visualizing how climate change is affecting Earth's natural systems can be very difficult for most people. In an effort to remedy this problem photojournalist James Balog founded the Extreme Ice Survey (EIS) in 2007, enduring brutal weather conditions to set up 28 cameras on glaciers around the world. The stationary cameras are designed to automatically snap photos every half hour throughout the year during daylight hours, in order to capture the recession of these glaciers. The photographs have resulted in not only stunning images but also visual proof that climate change is occurring very rapidly. A recent film, entitled Chasing Ice, is a highly-recommended documentary about the Extreme Ice Project and its significance, detailing how Balog's project came about and the technological difficulties the team faced. The film is replete with beautiful but tragic time-lapse videos and photos of the demise of some of the world's largest glaciers. The EIS team plans to keep at least some of the cameras in place and functioning indefinitely, providing a long-term visual record of the effects of climate change.
Aside from seeing the film, Chasing Ice, you can view many images and videos from the project on the EIS project website.
Photo of Jökulsárlón glacier (above) was taken by James Balog, founder of Extreme Ice Survey (EIS) project.