Greetings from the Rhône Glacier, where a gash of pink highlights how it’s melting
Far-Flung Postcards is a weekly series in which NPR’s international team shares moments from their lives and work around the world.
“What do you think would look better: pink or green?”
The bubblegum hue won. A scientist from the Swiss public university ETH Zurich nodded, pulling out a bottle of pink dye to release from the top of the Rhône Glacier in the Swiss Alps.
Turning the rivulet flowing down a melting glacier into a bright-pink stream was the least scientific test carried out this day. It was intended as a visual aid for journalists like me accompanying the team of scientists measuring the pace at which water flows off this glacier. The result: Faster than ever.
On the August day I joined the team, we were surrounded by a 360-degree aural landscape of running water. Some of those currents were coming from beneath the ice we gingerly trekked on, testing each step with a little weight so that we didn’t fall through one of the dozens of massive cracks. As the team took turns leaping over one, I was reminded of the packing list we were emailed before the trip — which included “Ice pick (Eispickel) in case of a slip into a crevasse.”
Fortunately, none of us had to use our Eispickel on this particular day. But we did use our cameras after the team poured the bottle of pink solution into a glacial stream — temporarily turning it into an even more unnatural display than the quickly vanishing glacier itself.
See more photos from around the world:
- Greetings from the Mediterranean, where dolphins swim alongside a migrant rescue ship
- Greetings from Kyiv, where you might stumble across Zelenskyy taking a stroll
- Greetings from Guatemala, where one person’s trash becomes another’s colorful art
- Greetings from American University of Beirut, where more than 1,000 cats roam
- Greetings from a peaceful woodland near the River Thames west of London
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