Ice can hold the outline of a mountain valley, break into floating towers, and preserve traces of a much older world. In the Ice episode of Earth: The Power of the Planet, geologist Iain Stewart brings those different roles together. The BBC documentary, broadcast in 2007, looks beyond an attractive frozen surface to ask how ice changes the planet beneath and around it. [1]
How snow becomes moving ice
One useful place to begin is the difference between snow lying on the ground and a glacier. Over time, accumulated snow can be compressed into glacier ice; under its own weight, that ice moves. The movement is slow enough to be easy to overlook in a single photograph, but its effects extend through whole valleys and beyond the glacier's present edge.
Iain Stewart's Greenland visit
Stewart's Greenland visit includes the glacier known as Jakobshavn, also called Sermeq Kujalleq. The original introduction quoted ten kilometres of retreat over an unspecified recent interval. Without its start and end dates, that figure cannot describe conditions today. The filmed glacier front belongs to a particular period, and later observations are needed to follow what happened afterward.
Explore more: a documented Greenland calving event; the hidden terrain beneath an ice sheet.
Connect the ice surface to the landscape
As you watch, connect the small features to the larger landscape. Fractures show that an apparently continuous surface is under stress; a wide view can place the ice within the terrain it occupies. Snow accumulation, ice flow and loss at a glacier's edge are parts of the same system. A spectacular collapse shows one event, while the glacier's overall balance requires a longer record. [2]
Where to look after watching the documentary
The episode remains an accessible introduction to glaciers and the landscapes they shape, rather than a current bulletin about every location shown. For an update after watching, the National Snow and Ice Data Center publishes observations of Greenland and Antarctic conditions. Pairing a clearly dated film with newer measurements is a useful way to see both what makes the subject compelling and how scientific understanding continues to develop. [3]
Sources, photography and further reading
Original feature and image attributions:
- Awesome Glacier Icebergs in Antarctica Moving, Colliding, Falling, Floating, Melting Ice!
- Some Beautiful Crater Lakes in the World
- Ice Castle at Silverthorne, Colorado
- Enjoy Travelling in Iceland, A Wild and Beautiful Country (Discovery Channel Documentary) (Historical link unavailable when checked on 15 September 2026.) Related reading: Ten Iceland Experiences: Waterfalls, Glaciers, Hot Springs and City Life.
- The World's Largest Ice Cave
- Stunning Snow Patterns by Simon Beck (Snow Art)
- a documented Greenland calving event
- the hidden terrain beneath an ice sheet
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