Solheim Glacier, Iceland
Sólheimajökull, Iceland, IL-5 Camera
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April 2008
Adam LeWinter
Adam is Extreme Ice Survey field operations manager. While camped at Greenland’s Ilulissat Glacier in May 2008, Adam, along with EIS team member Jeff Orlowski, witnessed the largest calving event ever captured on film. Adam’s degree in engineering from the University of Colorado at Boulder was put to good use during the design of the first EIS time-lapse camera systems.
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| High up on a mossy and grass-covered rock tower overlooking the Sólheimajökull Glacier sits the IL-5 EIS camera.
Iceland field assistant Svavar Jonatansson and I hiked through fresh snow to reach the camera. The whole camera box and tripod head, we discovered, had slowly been rotating on the wooden support frame bolted to the lava bedrock. Driving two wood screws into the frame ended the rotation, making life much easier for Jeff Orlowski and the time-lapse editing team.
Sólheimajökull has been rapidly retreating the past few years, enough so that two of the cameras aimed at this stream of ice had to be repositioned to keep the glacier in frame. Not only is the ice melting, but strong melt streams, draining off snowfields high on the Mýrdalsjökull volcano, undercut and erode the glacier.
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