A Year in the Life of the Extreme Ice Survey--and New Directions for the Future

November 09, 2011

James Balog

Hosted by John Calderazzo

Abstract

National Geographic adventurer and photographer James Balog will talk about how and why he founded the Extreme Ice Survey, connecting art and science to communicate to the general public how climate change and other human activities impact the environment.

Since 2007, with the involvement of scientists and educators, Balog has been using time-lapse imagery, making the world's most extensive ground-based photographic glacier study, documenting the ongoing retreat of glaciers and ice sheets. The EIS team has installed 38 time-lapse cameras at 22 glaciers in Greenland, Iceland, British Columbia, the Alps, and Bolivia.

Balog will also talk about new directions EIS is taking. His climate work has been featured at COP 15, in a 2009 NOVA documentary, in a book, Extreme Ice Now: Vanishing Glaciers & Changing Climate, and for the past several years on monitors at Denver International Airport. This colloquium presentation will be the final event of his three-day campus visits as a CSU Monfort Professor in Residence, coordinated by Changing Climates @ CSU.