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James Balog vividly illustrates the rapid retreat of ice sheets and glaciers on Earth. His work, which has appeared on the cover of National Geographic and on PBS, turns climate-change skeptics into believers, he says.

Balog鈥檚 time-lapse photography compresses months of ice retreat into a few minutes of dramatic footage, wherein viewers can watch glaciers shrink more than a mile in a year. Balog says he鈥檚 given presentations to many conservative groups, with positive results.

Balog mentions a retired Texaco official who鈥檚 鈥渕y new buddy.鈥� Balog adds, 鈥淗e saw a show I did in January. He says, 鈥榊ou鈥檙e telling it like is.鈥欌��

鈥淚t鈥檚 a decisive moment in geologic history and, for that matter, human history,鈥� Balog says. 鈥淎s a human being, I feel horrified to be here watching this. As a guy who is a scientist, it鈥檚 exhilarating.鈥�

A decade ago, however, Balog viewed himself as a skeptic.

鈥淚 thought there was more question about it. And I know way more than the average person does about ice science, polar science, the atmosphere,鈥� says Balog, who earned a graduate degree in geomorphology from the University of Colorado in 1977.

"It鈥檚 a decisive moment in geologic history and, for that matter, human history.鈥�

As a scientist, he had 鈥渁n inherited, deep-seated belief that people lacked the ability to change big pieces of the Earth quickly.鈥� Additionally, he was skeptical of environmental rhetoric.

鈥淚 thought this was just another fund-raising shenanigan to motivate the base, as (former White House adviser) Karl Rove would say.鈥� Finally, Balog thought climate science was based on more computer models than on empirical observations.

Then he learned more about the data upon which climate science is based. His opinion began to change. 鈥淭he thing I鈥檓 stunned by over and over again is that these scientists have a huge amount of information, and it鈥檚 persuasive. But the knowledge kind of sits behind the ivory tower wall.鈥�

Balog aims to breach that wall. Balog and his Extreme Ice Survey were featured on a one-hour NOVA/PBS documentary in March. That documentary followed Balog to Alaska, Greenland and Iceland, three of 15 sites where his team collects time-lapse images of glacial retreat.

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In this film clip, Balog describes the Extreme Ice Survey and displays time-lapse photographic records of retreating glaciers.

The Extreme Ice Survey is described as the most wide-ranging glacier study ever conducted using ground-based, real-time photography. (See video.)

Balog describes his work as a bridge between science and the public, and between art and science. In 2006, Balog says, he had a 鈥渆ureka鈥� moment. Maybe the satellite pictures (and their associated charts and graphs) wasn鈥檛 the best way to tell the story.

Satellite data abound. Last September, for instance, the National Snow and Ice Data Center at CU (directed by geography Professor Mark Serreze) announced that Arctic sea-ice cover reached its second-lowest extent since the dawn of the satellite record. Last year, minimum Arctic sea-ice extent was 2.24 million square kilometers below the 1979-2000 average.

Between winter 2005 and 2007, NSIDC and NASA reported, Arctic sea-ice extent shrank by an area equivalent to Texas and California combined. The shrinkage is seen in NASA satellite images.

But the satellite鈥檚 perspective, which most humans never experience, lacks the impact of ground-based images.

鈥淭he human animal lives anywhere from two feet to seven feet above ground,鈥� Balog says. That鈥檚 the human point of view. 鈥淚t鈥檚 how we see things.鈥� And it鈥檚 how we understand things.

Using ground-based cameras that snap one photograph per hour (during daylight) for up to two years, Balog鈥檚 films show breathtaking changes. Between May 15, 2007, and Sept. 21, 2008, the Columbia Glacier in Alaska retreated by 1.25 miles.

Balog鈥檚 images show the boundaries of each year鈥檚 retreat. Then, to give a human scale to the sweeping view of the glacier and the mountains behind, Balog鈥檚 film shows the extent of retreat on another human scale: 165 school buses, lined up end to end.

Even with all that context, it鈥檚 still boggling, he says. 鈥淔rankly, when you鈥檙e standing there, it鈥檚 hard to grasp the scale of it.鈥�

Balog says the EIS has been 鈥渨ay more successful鈥� than he鈥檇 imagined. 鈥淚 never thought I鈥檇 have EU [EU Envionmental Ministers] calling, asking for pictures to be displayed at [their] annual meeting.鈥�

鈥淚鈥檝e got the BBC pounding at the door for time-lapse images,鈥� he adds. 鈥淚 knew that the cameras were going to see things in a fresh and provocative way. But I didn鈥檛 really anticipate how much people would be knocked on their heels.鈥�

鈥淭he most skeptical skeptic and the most ignorant person in the audience can look at that and say holy ___,鈥� Balog says, adding that the rate of climate change today is 180 times faster than when Earth emerged from the last ice age.

Balog says the media have not reported the climate-change story well enough. That鈥檚 one reason he does a lot of outreach. 鈥淚 do it because I know this is real. I don鈥檛 want to be 85 years old and have my kids saying, 鈥楬ow could you have been so oblivious?鈥� I fear we鈥檙e not going to take strong enough action quickly enough.鈥�

He adds, 鈥淚 want to do whatever I can with the skills I have鈥� to convey the urgency of climate change. 鈥淚鈥檓 doing what I鈥檓 meant to be doing.鈥�

Balog鈥檚 team includes Tad Pfeffer, a CU professor of civil, environmental and architectural engineering. The EIS board of scientific advisers includes Konrad Steffen, a CU geography professor and director of the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences.

EIS鈥檚 sponsors include National Geographic, NASA and the National Science Foundation.

For more information about EIS, see .