Terry Evans

On the invitation of the Spencer Museum of Art at the University of Kansas, I began to think about how to respond as an artist photographer to the work being done by K.U. Center for Remote Sensing of Ice Sheets. CReSIS measures the depth of ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica to understand the rate of melting and thus better understand the rate of climate change. I wanted to see Greenland.

Before I went to Greenland, I imagined that my work would be about describing the Jakobshavn Glacier for an audience back home, much like photographer William Henry Jackson did in 1871, when he accompanied Dr. Ferdinand Hayden, geologist to Yellowstone, bringing back gorgeous photographs of that uncharted territory. My reality was different. I did aerially photograph, from a helicopter, the ice fjord leading to the calving front of the Jakobshavn Glacier and I did photograph the glacier front and its surface, but what I saw was confusing and frustrating. I could not understand what I was seeing because there were no human markers below me on the ice. I had no sense of scale. Was that chunk of ice twenty stories high or knee high?

Looking at my aerial pictures at home gave me no clarity. I later learned that the front of the glacier is about 70 meters high, about like a twenty story building. Finally I remembered that the heart of the work that CReSIS is doing is measuring the depth of the glacier and the rate at which itÕs melting and thereby being able to predict the rate of climate change and that understanding climate change is a challenging task. My own frustration in trying to understand the scale of the glacier pointed out to me that understanding the scale of climate change is equally difficult.

One of the best things about being in Ilulissat when I was there was the opportunity to observe the work that the CReSIS and NASA teams were doing in their work together. CReSIS was measuring the glacier depth and NASA was supporting their work by measuring the topography of the grid they were flying. I watched them in the airplane hanger at their computer data processing as the team in the radar equipped plane collected data from two four hour flights a day.

Another of the benefits to being there when I was, from June 23 to June 30, was that the sun never set. A midnight cruise among the icebergs in Disko Bay was among the most exhilarating experiences of my life, especially the minutes of silence when the fishing boat motor was turned off and we floated in cold sunny silence.

The landscape in Greenland on Pre-Cambrian rock, where there are no trees, was splendid to my eye. I explored the fen that has a rocky path leading to the ice fjord that leads to the mouth of the glacier. I kept remembering the prairies of Kansas.

Coming into Greenland (2008)	Path to Ice Fijord, Greenland (2008)	Disko Bay iceberg, Greenland (2008)
Disko Bay iceberg rippled water (2008)	Ice Fijord, Greenland (2008)	Ice Fijord 1, Greenland (2008)
Ice Fijord 2, Greenland (2008)	Ice Fijord 3, Greenland (2008)	Ice Fijord 4, Greenland (2008)
Ice Fijord 5, Greenland (2008)	Ice Fijord 6, Greenland (2008)	Ice Fijord 7, Greenland (2008)
Glacier, Greenland (2008)	Disko Bay iceberg with bird (2008)	Disko Bay, Greenland (2008)
On the invitation of the Spencer Museum of Art at the University of Kansas, I began to think about how to respond as an artist photographer to the work being done by K.U. Center for Remote Sensing of Ice Sheets. CReSIS measures the depth of ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica to understand the rate of melting and thus better understand the rate of climate change. I wanted to see Greenland. Before I went to Greenland, I imagined that my work would be about describing the Jakobshavn Glacier for an audience back home, much like photographer William Henry Jackson did in 1871, when he accompanied Dr. Ferdinand Hayden, geologist to Yellowstone, bringing back gorgeous photographs of that uncharted territory. My reality was different. I did aerially photograph, from a helicopter, the ice fjord leading to the calving front of the Jakobshavn Glacier and I did photograph the glacier front and its surface, but what I saw was confusing and frustrating. I could not understand what I was seeing because there were no human markers below me on the ice. I had no sense of scale. Was that chunk of ice twenty stories high or knee high? Looking at my aerial pictures at home gave me no clarity. I later learned that the front of the glacier is about 70 meters high, about like a twenty story building. Finally I remembered that the heart of the work that CReSIS is doing is measuring the depth of the glacier and the rate at which itÕs melting and thereby being able to predict the rate of climate change and that understanding climate change is a challenging task. My own frustration in trying to understand the scale of the glacier pointed out to me that understanding the scale of climate change is equally difficult. One of the best things about being in Ilulissat when I was there was the opportunity to observe the work that the CReSIS and NASA teams were doing in their work together. CReSIS was measuring the glacier depth and NASA was supporting their work by measuring the topography of the grid they were flying. I watched them in the airplane hanger at their computer data processing as the team in the radar equipped plane collected data from two four hour flights a day. Another of the benefits to being there when I was, from June 23 to June 30, was that the sun never set. A midnight cruise among the icebergs in Disko Bay was among the most exhilarating experiences of my life, especially the minutes of silence when the fishing boat motor was turned off and we floated in cold sunny silence. The landscape in Greenland on Pre-Cambrian rock, where there are no trees, was splendid to my eye. I explored the fen that has a rocky path leading to the ice fjord that leads to the mouth of the glacier. I kept remembering the prairies of Kansas.
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