the ice cap and met the warmer air rising from the sea. In the summer sun it was actually warmer at three thousand feet than on the surface of the ice cap, but even so the temperature was a few degrees below zero and they all wore fully insulated flight suits as well as helmets, a precaution against turbulence as the helicopter encountered thermal updraughts over exposed land and water along the coastline.
“We’ve got fifteen minutes until the helipad’s clear. Time for a quick sightseeing tour.”
Macleod had met them on the tarmac at Kangerlussuaq and had escorted them straight to the waiting Lynx helicopter. It had taken them just under an hour to fly due north to the Ilulissat icefjord, on Greenland’s west coast, almost a hundred and sixty miles north of the Arctic Circle. They had been following a heavy Chinook transport helicopter, based out of the remaining US air base in Greenland at Thule, a welcome part of the US government’s contribution to the IMU project. Costas had decided to fly in the Chinook to oversee the transfer of his equipment, and Jack could imagine the other man’s gnawing anxiety as he sat in the loading bay watching the fruit of months of labour suspended in a cargo net above the void. Now Jack and Macleod watched as the Chinook descended into the sea mist at the head of the fjord.
“This is where the iceberg came from that sank the Titanic,” Macleod said, his thick Glaswegian brogue enhanced by the intercom. “It’s one of the fastest-moving glacial ice streams in the world.” He swung the helicopter round to the east, facing inland, and flew at maximum speed for a few minutes until they had cleared the mist and could see the Greenland ice cap rising ahead of them in a vast stark dome. “The Ilulissat glacier’s the main pressure outlet for the ice cap, where the glacier flows down to discharge ice into the sea. You can see where the ice floe begins now.”
Macleod worked the controls and swung the Lynx in a wide arc back towards the sea. As they peered out they could see where the seamless undulations of the ice cap began to fracture and crenellate, forming a corrugated flow that seemed to ripple off towards the west.
“Believe it or not, that thing’s flowing at an incredible rate, almost eight miles a year,” Macleod said. “The crevasses are caused by the pressure of the glacier as it moves against the bedrock, in places almost three thousand feet below. It’s like a river flowing through rapids. And now for the fun part.”
He dipped the nose of the helicopter and they were suddenly hurtling towards the glacier, its fractured surface looming up at them in gigantic folds and fissures. At what seemed like the last moment Macleod levelled out, and almost immediately they were enveloped in sea mist, the glacier only fleetingly visible as the rotor swirled away the mist to reveal patches of white and yawning crevasses of deep blue.
“We’re actually more than five hundred feet above the glacier,” Macleod reassured them. “Remember how huge those features are.” For a few minutes he flew by instruments alone as they continued to hurtle through the mist, and then he eased back on the cyclic and dropped down until the altimeter read only two hundred and fifty feet above sea level. “Here we are.”
As he brought the Lynx to a hover the mist parted and a spectacular image materialised before their eyes. It was a vast wall of ice, towering almost as high as the helicopter and extending on either side as far as they could see. Rather than a sheer face of compacted ice, it was a fragmented mass of towers and canyons, fissured with streaks of blue where meltwater had flowed down from the surface and frozen again. The whole mass looked unbelievably fragile and precarious, as if the slightest nudge would bring it all cascading down.
“The leading edge of the glacier,” Macleod announced. “Or rather the mass of icebergs that have sheared off it and jammed up the head of
“We’ve got fifteen minutes until the helipad’s clear. Time for a quick sightseeing tour.”
Macleod had met them on the tarmac at Kangerlussuaq and had escorted them straight to the waiting Lynx helicopter. It had taken them just under an hour to fly due north to the Ilulissat icefjord, on Greenland’s west coast, almost a hundred and sixty miles north of the Arctic Circle. They had been following a heavy Chinook transport helicopter, based out of the remaining US air base in Greenland at Thule, a welcome part of the US government’s contribution to the IMU project. Costas had decided to fly in the Chinook to oversee the transfer of his equipment, and Jack could imagine the other man’s gnawing anxiety as he sat in the loading bay watching the fruit of months of labour suspended in a cargo net above the void. Now Jack and Macleod watched as the Chinook descended into the sea mist at the head of the fjord.
“This is where the iceberg came from that sank the Titanic,” Macleod said, his thick Glaswegian brogue enhanced by the intercom. “It’s one of the fastest-moving glacial ice streams in the world.” He swung the helicopter round to the east, facing inland, and flew at maximum speed for a few minutes until they had cleared the mist and could see the Greenland ice cap rising ahead of them in a vast stark dome. “The Ilulissat glacier’s the main pressure outlet for the ice cap, where the glacier flows down to discharge ice into the sea. You can see where the ice floe begins now.”
Macleod worked the controls and swung the Lynx in a wide arc back towards the sea. As they peered out they could see where the seamless undulations of the ice cap began to fracture and crenellate, forming a corrugated flow that seemed to ripple off towards the west.
“Believe it or not, that thing’s flowing at an incredible rate, almost eight miles a year,” Macleod said. “The crevasses are caused by the pressure of the glacier as it moves against the bedrock, in places almost three thousand feet below. It’s like a river flowing through rapids. And now for the fun part.”
He dipped the nose of the helicopter and they were suddenly hurtling towards the glacier, its fractured surface looming up at them in gigantic folds and fissures. At what seemed like the last moment Macleod levelled out, and almost immediately they were enveloped in sea mist, the glacier only fleetingly visible as the rotor swirled away the mist to reveal patches of white and yawning crevasses of deep blue.
“We’re actually more than five hundred feet above the glacier,” Macleod reassured them. “Remember how huge those features are.” For a few minutes he flew by instruments alone as they continued to hurtle through the mist, and then he eased back on the cyclic and dropped down until the altimeter read only two hundred and fifty feet above sea level. “Here we are.”
As he brought the Lynx to a hover the mist parted and a spectacular image materialised before their eyes. It was a vast wall of ice, towering almost as high as the helicopter and extending on either side as far as they could see. Rather than a sheer face of compacted ice, it was a fragmented mass of towers and canyons, fissured with streaks of blue where meltwater had flowed down from the surface and frozen again. The whole mass looked unbelievably fragile and precarious, as if the slightest nudge would bring it all cascading down.
“The leading edge of the glacier,” Macleod announced. “Or rather the mass of icebergs that have sheared off it and jammed up the head of
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