Adam LeWinter and Jeff Orlowski were a part of a crew in western Greenland that had cameras set up to look at glacier mass as part of the production team for Orlowski’s story Chasing Ice. Their cameras were capturing footage of the Ilulissat Glacier in May 2008. They had spent a considerable amount of time at this ice sheet viewing event. As it turned out, this group was ideally situated and timed to capture a startling natural phenomenon: their cameras captured the largest ice mass calving ever captured on film.
However, as the day wore on, things became startlingly energizing. LeWinter and Orlowski, who were camped overnight on a mountain overlooking Greenland’s Ilulissat Glacier, captured images of the glacial mass calving event that will go down in history as the largest one ever seen. The layout of new ice shelves results from glacial mass calving because enormous chunks of ice break off from the glacial mass’ edge.
According to Guiness World Records, the Ilulissat Glacier calved chunks of ice over a period of 75 minutes, reducing the glacier mass’ size by an area three miles broad and one mile long. As if that weren’t enough, the glacial mass and the ice sheets that followed it reach a height of around 3,000 feet, most of which is submerged.
A viewer watching the video of the glacier mass calving would witness the snow-covered ice fracturing and moving, creating the effect of a torrential flow. Along with the sounds of thunder and waves breaking, there are visuals of moving waves that appear to be trying to engulf the previously formed shards of ice. The enormous magnitude of the ice shelves has been compared to the rising and falling of Manhattan’s skyscrapers.
Massive icy masses created enormous waves in the chilly water by bouncing many feet in the air and then sinking. It’s challenging to comprehend the enormous magnitude of the ice sheets, which seem to move with ease. However, the frozen mass is currently 200 to 300 feet above the ocean, and some of the sliding ice chunks reached heights of 600 feet before falling once more.
This footage, which was captured from a peak facing western Greenland, is still startling and breaking records even now, a very long time after it was made. According to Earth Vision Institute, the Guinness Book of World Records recognized this event’s footage as the largest ice sheet calving ever captured on camera in 2016. The recording ended up being included in the narrative movie Chasing Ice.
Few people have personally experienced the kind of wonder that LeWinter and Orlowski observed and captured that day in 2008, despite the fact that the vast majority of people are aware of the amazing power of nature. They share with the world the amazing, frightful, scary, and fantastic occasion that astounded the world in their video film and the succeeding movie.
Here is the video: