# @cnnclimate on Instagram

- **Type:** Image
- **Original URL:** https://www.instagram.com/p/DVrvbZIDKRV
- **Gondola URL:** https://gondola.cc/posts/59130988-cnnclimate-instagram
- **Thumbnail:** https://img.gondola.cc/tr:w-,h-,fo-auto/postThumbnails/4e4c8fbaff.jpg
- **Posted:** 2026-03-10T00:15:49.000+00:00
- **Account Owner:** CNN Climate (@cnnclimate) — https://gondola.cc/cnnclimate

## Caption

Water cascading from a wall of ice with gray brushstrokes of clouds overhead makes for a beautiful image – but the story behind it is one of destruction; Earth's glaciers are melting at an unprecedented rate due to human-caused climate change.

Canadian photographer Paul Nicklen remembers taking the photograph. It was August 2014, and temperatures in Svalbard, Norway, were unusually warm – hovering above 70 degrees Fahrenheit (21 degrees Celsius). As he came around the corner of an ice cap on Nordaustlandet island, he saw more than a dozen waterfalls pouring off its face.

"It was the most poetic, beautiful scene I'd ever seen, but it was also haunting and scary," he recalls. The picture came to symbolize the realities of climate change and became Nicklen's best-selling fine art image. It appeared multiple times in National Geographic, was used by Al Gore in his climate talks, and graced the cover of Pearl Jam's 2020 album "Gigaton," the title of which refers to the unit used to calculate ice mass.

In recent decades, as climate disasters have become more frequent and intense, images have more explicitly captured the urgency of the situation. Six dead giraffes, bodies emaciated from the lack of food and water, photographed by Ed Ram, show the horror of Kenya's prolonged ongoing drought, which has threatened and displaced animals and humans alike. Photographs of wildfires, like those that ravaged Australia in 2019 and 2020, show the scale of devastation, with homes on fire and wildlife fleeing in despair. 

Read more about the stories behind these images at the link in our bio. 
#CallToEarth

📸: Courtesy of Paul Nicklen; Courtesy of Cristina Mittermeier; Matthew Abbott/The New York Times; © Gary Braasch/naturepl.com; Ed Ram/Getty Images; Courtesy of Cristina Mittermeier; © Nick Brandt, courtesy of Fahey/Klein Gallery, Los Angeles; Dmitry Kokh

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## Tags

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