A Brief Melting Moment

“Look how that rock dust is basically burning into the ice, transmitting and intensifying the heat of the sun,” said Jeff, leaning over my shoulder. “The huge streams of water that are pouring into the crevasses are breaking up the glacier’s underbody and lubricating its passage toward the sea.” However immobile it might appear, I could now sense how that glacier was collapsing underneath itself, letting loose its thousand-year life in a muddy, rock-strewn river rushing to the Arctic Sea.