Far-Flung Postcards is a weekly sequence during which NPR’s worldwide crew shares moments from their lives and work all over the world.
“What do you think would look better: pink or green?”
The bubblegum hue received. A scientist from the Swiss public college ETH Zurich nodded, pulling out a bottle of pink dye to launch from the highest of the Rhône Glacier within the Swiss Alps.
Turning the rivulet flowing down a melting glacier right into a bright-pink stream was the least scientific check carried out today. It was meant as a visible assist for journalists like me accompanying the crew of scientists measuring the tempo at which water flows off this glacier. The consequence: Quicker than ever.
On the August day I joined the crew, we had been surrounded by a 360-degree aural panorama of operating water. A few of these currents had been coming from beneath the ice we gingerly trekked on, testing every step with slightly weight in order that we did not fall by means of one of many dozens of huge cracks. Because the crew took turns leaping over one, I used to be reminded of the packing checklist we had been emailed earlier than the journey — which included “Ice pick (Eispickel) in case of a slip into a crevasse.”
Happily, none of us had to make use of our Eispickel on this explicit day. However we did use our cameras after the crew poured the bottle of pink resolution right into a glacial stream — briefly turning it into an much more unnatural show than the shortly vanishing glacier itself.
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