“Distant Postcards” is a weekly series in which NPR's global team shares moments from their lives and work around the world.
“What do you think will be better: pink or green?”
The bubblegum shade won. The scientist from the Swiss public university ETH Zurich nodded as he pulled out a bottle of pink dye that would be released from the top of the Rhone glacier in the Swiss Alps.
Turning a stream flowing down a melting glacier into a bright pink stream was the least scientific experiment carried out that day. It was intended as a visual aid for journalists like me accompanying a team of scientists measuring the rate of water flow from this glacier. Result: Faster than ever.
On the day in August when I joined the team, we were surrounded by a 360-degree soundscape of flowing water. Some of these currents came from the ice, on which we walked carefully, checking each step with a small weight so as not to fall into one of the dozens of massive cracks. As the team took turns jumping over one of them, I was reminded of the packing list we were emailed before the trip, which included an “Ice pick (Ice pick) in case of slipping into a crack.”
Luckily, none of us had to use ours Ice ax exactly on this day. But we used our cameras after the team poured a bottle of pink solution into a glacial stream, temporarily turning it into an even more unnatural spectacle than the rapidly melting glacier itself.
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