Man Travels the World to Photograph Melting Glaciers
2022-12-24
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1Not too long ago, 41-year-old Garrett Fisher flew in a small airplane close to the surface of Europe's largest glacier, which is in Norway.
2A glacier is a huge area of snow and ice that moves slowly down a mountain side.
3In that environment, the plane carrying a man who chases glaciers seemed almost like a toy.
4Fisher combines two activities he loves, flying and photography, trying to photograph every glacier on Earth.
5He wants his photos to show the beauty of glaciers before some of them disappear.
6Scientists say many glaciers are melting or getting smaller because the Earth's average temperature is increasing.
7Information from the European Environmental Agency, or EEA, says glaciers in the Alps Mountains have lost about half of their volume since 1900.
8The melting has gotten faster since the 1980s.
9The EEA said that by 2100, the size of European glaciers could decrease by between 22 percent and 84 percent.
10Another EEA estimate suggests that up to 89 percent could melt.
11The EEA also says nearly all small glaciers in Norway will likely disappear.
12Roderik van de Wal is a glacier expert at Utrecht University in the Netherlands.
13He said that scientists have good historical records of the size of glaciers in Europe and New Zealand.
14He added that those records show that glaciers are now melting faster.
15For Fisher, this means that time is running out.
16The melting pushes him to try to photograph the glaciers before it is too late.
17As a child, Fisher lived next door to a small airport in the state of New York.
18His grandfather was a pilot and took Fisher on plane rides when he was a young child.
19The older man would tell him: "Whatever you set your mind to, you can do."
20In the late 1990s, a friend told Fisher that the world's glaciers were disappearing.
21This pushed him to combine his love of flying and photography to photograph the Earth's remaining glaciers.
22He believed he was in a race against time.
23He believes his photographs could be of great value to future generations.
24So, he has launched Global Glacier Initiative, a non-profit group to support and show his work.
25He plans to open his photos to the public for research.
26Fisher flies a small plane called a Piper Super Cub which can carry two people.
27The plane smells of oil and feels like an old car. It is his choice for the dangerous flying over the glaciers.
28"The weather's bad, extremely cold, the winds are very strong and the flying's extremely technically challenging," Fisher said.
29"And to photograph glaciers, we're getting very close to all of this action. So, it requires a lot of skill, time and determination."
30He added: "I've been told by many pilots that I'm crazy."
31He has detailed plans in case of a crash on a glacier.
32He estimates he can survive for about 24 hours if he goes down.
33And he has measured the tail of the plane to be sure he can stay inside it while waiting for help.
34Some people would ask, why risk flying over glaciers when satellites already give pictures of them?
35Fisher said that satellite images don't capture the beauty of glaciers the way his photos can.
36His photos show the colors, shapes, and shadows as the light from the sun hits the glaciers.
37"Science has all of the data we need...The problem is, it's not beautiful," he said.
38Fisher has paid for his glacier photography with his own money. But it is costly.
39Money is running out and Fisher is looking for people who will help support his work.
40He hopes his photos will make people care more about glaciers.
41He is chasing the perfect image; one so beautiful it can make people and policymakers act.
42"We can live without them. We will live without them," Fisher says.
43"However, it hurts us to lose them."
44I'm Andrew Smith.