Near Elephant Island, Antarctica
Here’s a short video of a tour around an iceberg that I shot off Elephant Island in Antarctica several years back. This location was made famous as Shackleton’s emergency camp after their ship, Endurance, was shipwrecked in 1916. The story of their expedition is one of the greatest stories of polar survival. Part of the crew was marooned at this location for four and a half months. Frank Hurley’s photographs of this expedition are spectacular.
On the map, you can see the location where I shot this iceberg time-lapse video. I love ice and I love icebergs. For me, it’s bitter-sweet to view melting ice. Sweet, because they’re beautiful; bitter because the melting in the polar regions is accelerating. Climate change is real and its effects in Antarctica are profound. The polar regions are some of the fastest warming areas on the planet. The Antarctic Peninsula, where Elephant Island is located, has warmed 2.4 degrees over a 25 year period.
Climate change is complex and models are constantly being upgraded. There are still many unknowns and more research is needed. Keeping the Antarctic ecosystem (the continent and the surround Southern Ocean) as pristine as possible is key to global climate research. It’s like our canary in the coal mine. It’s important that we watch this canary carefully. Life on planet earth could be drastically affected by what happens in this remote, wild region.
Watch this video out to see one of Antarctica’s top predators.
