This morning it was thoughts of Lake Willoughby in Northeast Vermont, in deep winter. Reminiscent of a long Scandinavian fjord, it's wholly inhospitable when frozen over. Steep cliffs are covered with ice, and winds tear down the lake between them. I've dreamed of this place before, but now in the context of the past. Arriving with the French 400 years ago, it would have seemed beyond sublime; terrifying, without shelter. This is comforting, for reasons I can't identify.
Five years ago, from my cabin in the Dominican Jungle, I planned to go to grad school in Colorado. I would spend summers on the Greenland ice cap working the rounds of paleoclimatology, and winters in Boulder, sitting in front of computer screen and venturing out to boot up the front range in search of pistes. That fell away, but Vermont is a fine place. Often frozen, sometimes claustrophobic and agoraphobic. Crisp and brilliant now, though holiday travels bring me away.
I've thrown another log on the fire. Changes are apparent. The New Yorker magazine this week reports that glaciers on the Antarctic peninsula that were unbroken thirty years ago are now fragmented and discontinuous, stony ridges poking up between them. This summer NASA satellites beamed images of Arctic sea ice covering 25% less area than the established average. Mountain glaciers retreat. The American Northeast has held mostly steady, but even there the retreat of winter has been noticeable in my scant three decades.
The ice is fading.
