NOVA - Official Website Extreme Ice. Extreme Ice. PBS Airdate: March 2. NARRATOR: In the extreme, ice- bound regions of the earth.

Everywhere, glaciers and ice sheets have. DR. JAMES. WHITE (University of Colorado at Boulder): Can we put the brakes on it at any point?

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NARRATOR: In the extreme, ice-bound regions of the earth, something unprecedented is happening. Everywhere, glaciers and ice sheets have begun breaking apart and. Search the world's information, including webpages, images, videos and more. Google has many special features to help you find exactly what you're looking for.

Do we. have that much control? DR. MARK. SERREZE (National Snow and Ice Data Center): There are concerns that we get to some point that. NARRATOR: Over the history of the earth, ice has frequently. With the future of the ice in question, photographer James Balog risks.

Directed by Enrique Gato. With Óscar Barberán, Michelle Jenner, José Mota, José Corbacho. Tad is a celebrity archeologist and adventurer just like his hero Max.

JAMES BALOG (Extreme Ice Survey): This is one of the scariest, dumbest things I've. Where I'm laying right now was under water just six hours ago.

I'm not feeling real comfortable out here. NARRATOR: His incredible imagery is witness to one of the. Extreme Ice. revealed, right now on this NOVA/National Geographic Special. NARRATOR: James Balog has a near- fatal attraction to ice. JAMES BALOG: Oh, god, that is intense. NARRATOR: His fascination is leading him farther and deeper. JAMES BALOG: I feel like I'm not on Planet Earth right now, like.

I am in truly some extraterrestrial environment. The world isn't supposed to. NARRATOR: What began as a photographic assignment has. On. the Greenland ice sheet, a crack opens and a mile- wide lake pours down a. JAMES BALOG: This water is just drilling down into the ice sheet. NARRATOR: One of the world's biggest glaciers shears off an. JAMES BALOG: You're not supposed to be able to witness things.

Human beings don't generally get to see these massive features of. NARRATOR: Changes in the ice are normal.

It is volatile and. Balog is witnessing suggests something. His passion is to document it and help scientists. MARK. SERREZE: Many of the changes we're seeing are unfolding faster than our ability. JAMES WHITE: Our relationship with ice is one that has very. Don't worry about it,". Boy, you know, this is one of the most important controllers of the.

NARRATOR: Balog's work frames one of the most important. As. scientists try to figure it out, Balog is finding evidence to help answer some. JAMES BALOG: Got it.

NARRATOR: His Extreme Ice Survey is the largest. He is deploying 2. It is a massive. challenge, in some of the most hostile regions on Earth. JAMES BALOG: So everything we're trying is getting thwarted.

I'm. trying not to be frustrated. Watch A Gang Land Love Story Download there. NARRATOR: But the pain is starting to pay off, with. JAMES BALOG: My hope is that it will be powerful and immediate. Yeah, I get it, I understand it. Okay, this is. real. This is forensic evidence of the reality of what's happening."NARRATOR: The fact that the ice is changing is nothing new.

Over the millennia, the expansion and contraction of ice across the continents. DR. RICHARD. ALLEY (The Pennsylvania State University): The waxing and waning of the ice sheets have been.

And there are even some people. NARRATOR: In the past, the cycle of ice ages and periods of. Since the Industrial Revolution. Temperatures are.

JAMES WHITE: I think that if we stay on the path we're on, we. The. real questions, the more complicated ones: how fast are we going to get there? How. much is it going to rise? Can we put the brakes on it at any point? NARRATOR: It is the speed of the melt that is most.

Alaska. Glaciers. High in the mountains, snowfall builds up and. Gravity pulls it down in colossal rivers.

Over. the last 4. Alaska have risen about four degrees. Fahrenheit, twice as fast as the global average. Now these rivers of ice are. Some. people are taking advantage of the glacial fireworks while they last. Surfers. towed in by jet skis are playing a dangerous game of chicken with the ice.

It. is rapidly- calving glaciers, like these, that are the main contributors to. Alaska's. Columbia is one of the biggest ocean- feeding glaciers in North America. In. the early 1. 98. Columbia started flowing faster and began calving far more.

Balog and. the Extreme Ice Survey glaciologists are trying to figure out how much ice the. Columbia is losing and whether or not it can survive.

NARRATOR: In. Columbia Bay, melting icebergs jam up before being. This is the end of the line for the Columbia, a. Balog in. JAMES BALOG: Out here, basically, we're looking at a whole. It's. a cool spot. There's a lot of power here. It seems to be calm, it seems to be.

Every. time you go in here you're taking a risk, because these bergs are inherently. But you get seduced by the beauty of it, you know? You just get drawn. It's like the sirens of Columbia Bay pulling you in, luring you in, going, "Come.

And you just keep following these beautiful. Okay. Jeff, right about on this line, here. The. light that really makes these sculptures come alive is bouncing off the surface.

Oh! NARRATOR: At the Extreme Ice Survey camp, glaciologist Tad. Pfeffer tracks the flow of the Columbia. As the glacier moves, it churns up.

The Columbia is so vast, it's hard. Pfeffer. and his colleague, Shad O'Neel, are taking its vital signs, measuring the speed. To do this, they fire a laser survey gun at reflective targets. As. the pilot hovers a few inches above the glacier, O'Neel positions the target. Pfeffer. locks onto the target and shoots a laser that reflects back to the stationary gun. DR. TAD. PFEFFER (University of Colorado at Boulder): I got it.

You're good. Come on back. Okay. first one down, 1. NARRATOR: The target moves with the ice. By tracking its. movement with the laser, over several days, they will be able to calculate the. Columbia. Just. down the fjord, Balog and Extreme Ice Survey engineer, Adam Le. Winter, climb. down to one of the time- lapse cameras they installed a year ago.

JAMES BALOG: Oh, yes, here it is, here it is. ADAM. LEWINTER (Extreme Ice Survey): Still all there?

JAMES BALOG: Yeah, the camera's here, but what happened to the. When I was here a year ago, that calving face was just right there.

All. right, we have pictures. NARRATOR: The time- lapse brings to life the dynamic nature. JAMES BALOG: It's a revelation.

Every time we open up these boxes. NARRATOR: Although calving is normal, the Columbia is. Balog's. time- lapse images capture a rate of retreat that shows no sign of stopping. In. the last year alone, the Columbia lost another half- mile of ice. JAMES BALOG: I really never expected that we were going to see. NARRATOR: This rapid calving of the Columbia is a symptom.

If Pfeffer and O'Neel can figure. They're. taking a curious tack by using earthquake technology to crack open the mystery. They're. installing seismometers that pick up the vibrations of icequakes, tremors that. From the seismic data, a pattern. They. knew water was melting the ice, but it appears that it's prying the ice apart. DR. SHAD O'NEEL (U.

S. Geological Survey Alaska Science Center): You can hear meltwater running right now, and it's. And if you have a fracture with high- pressure. NARRATOR: The seismic record confirms that the calving.

As rising. temperatures create more surface melt, the water pours into the cracks in the. The. result is increased calving and a quicker demise of the glacier. JAMES BALOG: Oh there's a big one coming up from underneath.

There. it is. NARRATOR: Balog is seeing this powerful fracturing effect. JAMES BALOG: That basal ice has come up from the very bottom of. As the ice and the snow are squeezed. And so when the base of the.

NARRATOR: Meanwhile, after several days of laser tracking. Tad Pfeffer knows how fast the Columbia is moving: 5.

TAD PFEFFER: Go back to 1. Look at the trimline over there.

That's where the ice.