The viral photo of the melting in Greenland
Every day should seem like the same day the glaciers of northwestern Greenland. Wherever you look, the ice and the sky give you back a wonderful play of colors through light.
For the Danish scientist Steffen M. Olsen every day stopped being the same day in the middle of the afternoon Thursday June 13, when he took the photo of his sled pulled by eight dogs running on the waters.
The image creates an effect as magical as it is disturbing that goes far beyond the interest of the scientific community. And it is that the melting in the glacier of Inglefield Bredning is being used as a throwing weapon in a fierce debate between activists , who already classify the photo as irrefutable graphic proof of the effects of climate change, and the deniers, who even doubt the veracity of the photo. And in the midst of the crossfire, the author of the photo keeps an eerie silence.
To date, this is Olsen's only tweet about it: “Communities in Greenland depend on sea ice for transportation, hunting and fishing. Extreme events, such as here the flooding of ice from the abrupt start of surface melt, require greater predictive capacity in the Arctic.”
It is the concise clarification to the information of the **Danish Meteorological Institute (DMI)**, which was trying to cover the backs of its researcher before the media downpour: "Steffen Olsen had the difficult task this year of recovering our oceanographic moorings and the meteorological station in the sea ice of northwestern Greenland. Fast melting and low-permeability sea ice let water show through on top.”
Greenland
And it is that Steffen Olsen is a climate researcher and much of his work consists of measure the sea ice around Greenland. Something they have been doing with dedication at the Danish Meteorological Institute for a decade.
In practical terms, the researchers install all the instruments in the ice of the fjords during the winter and they return to the same spot in early summer to fix the material again before the ice melts and all the gauges end up in the depths of the sea. An explanation that has not served to prevent the spread of rumors of all kinds.
But why is this spectacular image so important? What is the true backstory? And the most crucial: Is it or is it not a direct cause of climate change?
“The exact moment when the water melts over the ice is nothing special. The melting of ice with sea water takes place every year. . It is the explanatory text that they have posted on the official website. That is dogs pulling the sled knee-deep in water shouldn't alarm the scientific community nor to anyone because it is something that has already happened even with higher temperatures at this time of year.
Every summer warm air moves in from the south and causes Greenland's ice to melt.
"A picture is worth a thousand words," says Martin Stendel, from the Danish Meteorological Institute exclusively for Traveler.es.
This climate researcher claims that “The photo is probably more symbolic than strictly scientific. It gives the impression that something is not as it should be. It is one of those few iconic images that deal with people's emotions. You have to be in the right place at the right time. He thinks the ice in the photo has already broken up, so all the water is gone.” A moment then, that cannot be repeated until next year.
Stendel wanted to make it clear that it is true that the temperatures have been unusual in Greenland during the month of june: "We have anecdotal evidence that traversing the fjord has become less safe in recent years."
Specifically, On the day of the photo, the temperature was 17.3 °C when the usual temperature for these dates is 5.7 °C. They are 11.6 ° C above the average that should not go unnoticed. But it is not a record temperature because on June 30, 2012 levels of 17.6 °C were reached.
As the author of the photo, Olsen wanted to respond to one of the most commented topics on the net about whether it was imprudent to move on top of the ice in these extreme conditions: “We know that the ice was 1.2 meters thick and that we had about 870 meters of water below us. Together with local hunters, we have been measuring the thickness of the ice from December until now."
Exact figures that they know on a daily basis because it is an essential security operation, since “satellites observe sea surface topography and ice, ocean color, and temperatures on land and oceans, but such observations from space must be calibrated with observations in situ.” And this is where dog sledding becomes the most convenient way to get around Greenland.
From the Danish institute, they also give a logical justification regarding the melting ice that goes far beyond climate change: “The ice in the fjord has been there all winter and is quite thick. This means that there are few cracks. When the ice begins to melt on the surface, there are not many places where the water can drain. That's why it accumulates like in the picture in a huge lake of melted water on top of the ice."
And here we come to the great paradox that surrounds the image of the glacier: the photo is and is not a consequence of climate change. Stendel assures that "the photo can be contextualized within the climate change crisis, although it does not show a direct relationship with climate change." In other words, the ravages of climate change are visible in Greenland.
Furthermore, scientists have confirmed that in a thousand years, the ice cap may completely disappear contributing to sea level rise by 7.2 meters: "Our climate models show that the sea ice season will get shorter and shorter in the future. How fast it will advance will depend on the speed at which global warming advances."
However, the situation in the image is not in itself a direct expression of global warming.
Returning to the scientific paradox, the only thing certain is that, although the photo can be contextualized within the general climate crisis, the main actors have not used the concept “climate change” at any time to justify any extraordinary event: "What we see in the photo is a consequence of the weather (although it is very unusual) and not of climate change."
For climate researchers like Martin Stendel, the crucial thing about the photo (and that nobody is mentioning) "It's not that there's water in the ice, it's that this happens very early in the year." Seeing humans and animals walk on top of the water is wild and rare, but each summer warm air moves in from the south and causes the Greenland ice to melt.