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ost and Courier journalists honored for excellence

SPECIAL REPORT

The S.C. Press Association awards were presented Friday. The Post and Courier received the President’s Award for Excellence.
The award recognizes the best overall performance in the contest among all the newspapers in the state.

President’s Award for Excellence • Innovation • Podcast • Website • Montgomery/Shurr FOI Award

‘I Am

Omar’
thh
tff rthe
questfo
AAquestfo
trueidentity
ofOmaribnSaid,
aMuslim man
enslaved intheCarolinas

RANDOLPH LINSLY SIMPSON

AFRICAN-AMERICAN COLLECTION/YALE

First Place:
Investigative Reporting

UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

HAWES
STORY BY JENNIFER BERRY
MCINTYRE
PHOTOGRAPHS BY GAVIN
This story was supported by the

D

Pulitzer Center

of the author.
journalists, explain the importance
Sy leans over to grasp the packet.
Draped in folds of royal purple,
ibn Said.
He has never heard of this Omar
his most historically imporThat’s not surprising. Omar wrote
190 years ago, and it spent much
tant text, a brief autobiography,
an old trunk in Virginia.
of the last century forgotten in
and more than two decades into
When he wrote it, Omar was 61
in Charleston and then
first
—
America
in
a long enslavement
freedom for candor, though he’d
North Carolina. He lacked the
exotic script and born-again zeal
his
for
celebrity
minor
a
become
for Jesus.
Or so they said.

the Sahara Desert
AKAR — Dust rolling in from
the clay structures
cloaks the horizon, shrouding
of strangers as
ahead and disorienting the band
to this ancient vilthey approach. Yet they come
lage in search of clarity.
the most learned men in the
Imam Amadou Baîdy Sy, among
into his home. Gathering
guests
unexpected
the
area, welcomes
Araand tapestries, they clutch two
around him on colorful mats
mystery.
trans-Atlantic
a
with
laden
each
bic texts,
written two centuries ago by a
The documents contain words
of
here in the sand-swept expanse
man captured somewhere out
who include two Post and Courier
northern Senegal. The visitors,

STORY CONTINUES ON PAGE

Photojournalist
of the Year

‘Uncovered’ series

2

staff

Jennifer Berry Hawes

First Place:
News Section

Andrew J. Whitaker

First Place:
Health Beat Reporting
First Place:
News Feature Writing

‘I Am Omar’

First Place:
Lifestyle Feature Writing

Jennifer Berry Hawes,
Gavin McIntyre and Chad Dunbar

Andrew J. Whitaker

First Place: General News Photo
A crowd of protesters are seen through the
glasses of Nicole Sweats at Marion
Square during a justice for Jamal
Sutherland protest and march down
from Marion Square to the Judicial Center
May 17, 2021 in Charleston.

First Place:
Judson Chapman
Award

First Place: Photo Series
or Photo Story
Uncovered
First Place: Sports
Feature Photo
Kids from the Fort Dorchester youth
patriots team play catch
during the Fort Dorchester and
Dorman football game on August
3, 2021, in North Charleston.

David Slade

First Place:
Humorous Photo
A delay of practice after an
alligator walks around near
the green on hole 6 at the PGA
Ocean Course in Kiawah Island.

First Place:
Public Service

E.A. Ramsaur
Award for
Editorial Writing

‘Uncovered’ series
staff

Kalyn Oyer

First Place:
Arts and
Entertainment
Writing

Jim Davenport
Award for Excellence

Cindi Ross Scoppe

First Place:
COVID-19 Coverage

Also First Place:
Editorial or Column in Support
of FOI and Open Government Issues

staff

Area high
school teams
win state titles
SPORTS, B1

Grace Beahm Alford

First Place:
Sports Action Photo
Horses compete in the The Alston Cup
at the Steeplechase of Charleston at the
Plantation at Stono Ferry in Hollywood
on Sunday, Nov. 15, 2020.

Government Reporting
Seanna Adcox
$75 WORTH OF COUPONS INSIDE

Saving music
on the
peninsula
LIFE, F1

$5,920 IN SAVINGS FOR 2021

SUNDAY

F O U N D E D 18 0
Sunday, September

IN SELECT AREAS

3

WINNER OF T

19, 2021

H E 2 015 P U L I

POSTANDCOURIER.COM

TZER PRIZE F

First Place:
Pictorial
Crews perform safety inspections on the Arthur Ravenel Jr. Bridge over the Cooper River on Wednesday, June 23, 2021. The routine inspections of the cables are
mandated by federal law and are done once every two years. Work is expected to
continue all week and require a temporary right lane closure on U.S. 17 southbound
from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. June 26 and June 27, weather permitting.

illness. health disorder.
inmates grappling with mental
psychiatric beds to
that’s led The shift from
slow-rolling crisis that has enveloped
and It’s part of a national trend facilities cellblocks has placed increasing presthese
South Carolina’s detention centers
prison staff, many of
strug- some experts to dub
One Justice sure on jail and
prisons in a state that has long
mental “America’s new asylums.” some 44 whom are ill-equipped to deal with
SUTHERLAND FAMILY/PROVIDED
gled with caring for those with
Department report noted
had been
illnesses.
Jamal Sutherland
state’s percent of inmates surveyed a mental Please see SUTHERLAND, Page A7
with
Over the past two decades, the
at the
Jamal Sutherland’s death of a jails and prisons have swelled with previously diagnosed
Charleston County jail is part

UNCOVERED
Shining a light on South Carolina

S

Gravity

chunks of ice that

Greenland is a
wonderland of ice.
Its melting glaciers
could seal the
Lowcountry’s fate.

o many things in Greenland
are gigantic. Greenland is five times the
roughly 80 percent size of California, and
is covered with ice.
land’s ice sheet is a
Greenmile
the center of the countrydeep on average, but near
it rises 10,000 feet
sky. Greenland’s ice
sheet is so thick and into the
makes the Earth wobble
heavy
a bit as it spins, like that it
anced top. When the
an unbalsometimes cracks ice sheet meets the ocean, the ice
and falls with the force
bombs. Even Greenland’s
of atomic
language, Greenlandic,
huge words — one
has
is 153 letters long.
BY TONY BARTELME
Greenland’s ice is melting
in a big way,
[email protected]
summer, so much
melted in one week too. This
om
that you could
flood the entire state
of
South
PHOTOGRAPHS
Carolina
water. The ice sheet
with 2 feet of
BY LAUREN PETRACCA
normally melts in
[email protected]
the summer, but
it’s melting faster now
om
All this melting ice than it has in 12,000 years.
raised sea levels across
globe, just as dropping
This story is part of
the
the Pulitzer Center’s
ice cubes into a whisky
eventually makes a
nationwide
drink
Connected Coastlines
mess. Except some
project and also received
ice cubes in
support
from The Fund for Investigative
Journalism.

Reforms helping fuel
a shift
toward cleaner energ
y in SC

BY CHLOE JOHNSON
[email protected]
ties that they needed
om
to address the removalmore specific plans
A quiet transformati
of fuels used to keep of coal, the dirtiest
on has been hapthe lights on today.
pening on a board
that regulates South As a result, both utilities are now planning
Carolina’s power
utilities — and could to retire coal generation within a
decade.
help herald the state’s
The move, among
transition to cleaner
energy.
change from just a fewothers, marked a sea
years ago, when
The Public Service
Commission weighs commission didn’t question power the
in on power companies’
companies’ plans at all,
and advocates who
proposals for sent
what types of energy
in comments on them
were mostly
the PSC ordered they use. This year, ignored.
both Duke Energy’s
South Carolina subsidiaries
But the ramifications
of a nuclear reacion Energy South Carolina and Domin- tor project known
revisions to their plans. to make major fell apart in 2017 as V.C. Summer that
helped
usher
in
reform
The panel told the investor-own
ed utili- Please see
NUCLEAR, Page A15
Mostly cloudy.
High 85. Low 75.
Complete 5-day
forecast, C6

Inside
BUSINESS

$100M N. Chas.
project includes
golf, hotels, more.
E1

HOME

Dorchester student
farm pushes on after
pandemic year. D1

E-PAPER EXTRAS

Get TV Guide in the
E-Paper. To access
the E-Paper, go to
bitly/3fSuvDU

have broken off of

THE VOICE/PROVIDED

Shattering the wall of secrecy
around Fairfield’s schools chief

RVICE

Costly travel, hefty compensation,

ion

BY JOSEPH CRANNEY,
BALL
AVERY G. WILKS and BARBARA
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]

Steve Bailey

First Place:
Column Writing

was proEDITOR’S NOTE: This story
Voice of
duced in collaboration with Thepartner.
Fairfield County, an Uncovered

Avery G. Wilks

with anger as he read an article
in his local newspaper. The
break,
school district he leads was on winter
over the
but Green couldn’t stop fuming
words on the page before him. reported
The Voice of Fairfield County
to meet
that Green’s district had failed
certain state academic benchmarks.

it.
The article cited statistics to prove
Bristling at the critique, the superintenand
dent fired off an email to his principals Bi“False,
school board. The missive, titled blasted
ased, and Misleading Reporting,”of “marthe paper and accused its reporter system.”
ginalizing our students, staff, and
Please see PAPER, Page A5

money. When he

INVESTIGATIVE
FUND

Support
journalism

To contribute, simply go
to postandcourier.com/
donate and click on
“learn more” about the
Investigative Reporting
Fund and Endowed
Fund. You can also
send a check to the
Coastal Community
Foundation, 1691
Turnbull Ave., North
Charleston, SC 29405,
and write “Post
and Courier Investigative
Fund” in the subject line.

tackled in 2021
Looking back at what lawmakers

leaders
But the Legislature’s Republican as they
year
called it a hugely successful
short recompleted efforts that have fallen gave the
that
peatedly, following an election
their largest GOP majorideath penalty.
a close May House and Senate
As the regular session came to
who ties ever.
came along
13, Democrats blasted the Republicans
“There were expectations that Majority
as prioritizing
that, and we delivered,” Senate
2021 leg- dominate both chambers
for socially conservative with
COLUMBIA — South Carolina’s
law banning “red meat” issues
islative session started with a passage of primary voters over improving South CaroPlease see LEGISLATURE, Page A8
most abortions and ended with
linians’ lives.
the
resuming
and
rights
bills expanding gun

Was session a success? It depends

on whom you ask

BY SEANNA ADCOX
[email protected]

SEANNA
ADCOX/STAFF

Inside

HOME

SPORTS

Rombauer pulls Preakness upset;
B1
Medina Spirit finishes third.
Sunny.
High 79. Low 60.
Complete 5-day
forecast, C6

Orchestra League’s downtown
tour of homes inspires. D1

BUSINESS

If you’re no longer driving to work,
E1
you may get insurance break.

E-PAPER EXTRAS

access
GetTV Guide in the E-Paper.To
the E-Paper, go to bit.ly/3fSuvDU

.......................F7 H
Books ..............................F4 Crossword
.......................F8 Li
Business & Tech...............E1 Dear Abby
Real Estate........ D1 M
Classifieds .......................E5 Home &

Tracy Burlison

First Place:
Page One Design

Page A10

Claflin partnership lets
earn degrees, prepar inmates
e for future

BY LIBBY STANFORD
University in Orangeburg
[email protected]
to launch
om
a program that gives
inmates
portunity to earn bachelor’s the opTRENTON — Stephon,
degrees
at Trenton Correctional an inmate in criminal justice, psychology
Institution organizationa
and
near Aiken, spends
l management.
his afternoons
studying criminal
Stephon now has a
justice.
When he gets out of concrete goal:
He takes notes on
prison in 2025,
using a prison-issued his lectures he is going to attend
law school.
tablet, notebooks and pens. As
“I’m in a better position
he
than
at his assignments, whittles away somebody who hasn’t
he dreams of a the
been through
future career as a lawyer.
criminal justice system
to help
change it,” said Stephon,
Stephon did not
whose
what his life will lookthink about last name cannot be
released
like
outside
to
the
public because of a
of the prison’s walls
Corrections Defor most of his partment
15-year sentence. This
changed in privacy. policy to protect inmates’
June when the S.C.
Department of
Corrections partnered
with Claflin Please
see CLAFLIN, Page A15

Arts and Events ...............F2
Classifieds .......................E5
Books..............................F4
Home & Real Estate........
D1 Nation/World .................
Crossword .......................F7
Business & Tech...............E1
A9 Sports ...........................
Horoscope .......................F8
Dear Abby .......................F8
. B1
Obituaries .......................C4
Life..................................F1
Sudoku............................F7
Opinion ...........................
C1 Television........................F8

N
S

First Place:
l
Enterprise
reporting

Maura Hogan

David Wren

First Place:
Review Portfolio

First Place:
Business Beat Reporting

First Place:
Obituary

First Place:
Profile Feature Writing

Gavin McIntyre

First Place:
Feature Photo
North Charleston Patrol Officer Abril Washington-Saunders pulled her vehicle to side to play
basketball with two children along Constitution
Avenue Dec. 4, 2020, in North Charleston.

Gene Sapakoff

First Place:
Sports Feature Story

‘The Greenland
Connection’

Chad Dunbar

First Place:
Personality Photograph or Portrait
Cleve DuBois drew local fame in the early 2000s for building a homemade Batmobile that he drove around Charleston dressed as the superhero, but he is currently at
the Hill-Finklea Detention Center in Moncks Corner. DuBois is facing meth trafficking charges, but hopes to return as Batman and help people again.

First Place:
Mixed Media Illustration
First Place:
Inside Page Design

Chad Dunbar, Matthew Fortner
and Lauren Petracca

Tony Bartelme and Lauren Petracca

First Place:
Photo Page Design

Dunbar

Lauren Petracca

The Post and Courier: A11

Petracca

RISING WATERS

A10: Sunday, September 19, 2021

First Place: Spot News
Tonya O’Neal wades through
floodwaters following a heavy
rain to get back home after
leaving Green’s Grocery to buy
cigarettes on Bogard Street on
Sunday, June 13, 2021.

Bartelme

INNSBORO— J.R.Greenseethed

Senate

First Place:
Government Beat
Reporting

lack of accountability uncovered

W

Majority
Leader Shane
Massey, REdgefield,
talks to
reporters
after the
regular legislative session
ended on
May 13.

First Place:
Individual Use of
Social Media

LAUREN

the Ilulissat Glacier, PETRACCA/STAFF
also known

Greenland can be half
There’s more: The the size of Manhattan.
that it generates its Greenland ice sheet is so massive
own gravity. It pulls
Ocean toward it like
the Atlantic
South Carolina is at someone tugging a blanket.
the other end of this
which means that Greenland
blanket,
pulls water
our coast, lowering
our sea level. But as away from
its gravity disperses
the ice melts,
end of the ice’s powerand its grip loosens. Seas at the far
That’s one reason seaslosh back.
risen faster than many levels in South Carolina have
Greenland is 3,000 other places around the globe.
this distant land of miles north of Charleston, but
ice, polar bears and
ready has reshaped
reindeer alour
ton’s tides higher, our coastline. It has made Charlesflooding
worse.
And what happens in Greenland
in
the Lowcountry’s fate.the future will largely determine
These forces come
with overwhelmin
it’s best to start smaller.
g numbers, so
Perhaps by flying
old plane over the
world’s fastest-movin in a 78-yearg glacier.
With an Elvis impersonator
on board.

Please see GREENLAND,

corruption and misconduct

of public
about his salary and his spending
years has sidestepped questions
of Fairfield schools, (right) for he started the taxpayer-funded Fairfield Post.
J.R. Green, superintendent
was too critical of his district,
thought the local newspaper

USC

First Place:
Spot Sports Story

ice sculptures are

LIFE, F1

Charleston, S.C. $3.00

BY GLENN SMITH,
and
JENNIFER BERRY HAWES
MARY KATHERINE WILDEMAN
The Post and Courier

SPORTS, B1

Jeff Hartsell

CHAPTER 1

Piccolo Spoleto
arts festival
returns

PUBLIC SERVICE

Jails often ill-equippe

First Place:
Feature Video
Emanuel shooting survivor, slave trader’s
descendant take civil rights road trip together to
confront the past together

SPECIAL REPORT
R I S I N G WAT E R S

Seagulls fly around
as Jakobshavn, 40 an iceberg in Disko Bay outside Ilulissat
miles inland.
on Aug. 4. The giant

PULITZER PRIZE FOR

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cts crisis
nd bars refle
Tragedy dbehi
land there
to work with mentally ill patients who

Charleston, S.C. $3.00

The Greenland Conn
ect

W I N N E R O F T H E 2 0 15

Sunday, May 16, 2021

Georgia
upends

OR PUBLIC SE

SUNDAY

F O U N D E D 18 0 3

THE GREENLAND CONNECTION

Bay as giant icebergs float out to sea
A cemetery above Ilulissat frames a view of Disko
ones in places with beautiful views
on Aug. 9. A Greenlandic tradition is to bury loved
and close to hunting grounds.

Thunderous roar
as melting ice spells
trouble for coasts
GREENLAND, from A1
CHAPTER 2

The ice has
left the building

2,500 feet deep. But near the fjord’s mouth,
the biggest icebergs hit an underwater speed
bump — a sudden rise in the seabed that’s
still about 800 feet deep. This bump creates
the world’s most beautiful traffic jam.
Icebergs with giant arches crowd ones that
look like snow cones, alligator heads and
cowboy hats. Blue meltwater rivers speed

down shimmering white slopes. Humpback
whales swim between iceberg cliffs. Water
It was the middle of August, and the afterstreams off the cliffs, sounding like a steady
noon temperature was in the low 60s, speedrain. Some icebergs lose their balance as they
ing up the summer melt. Above western
melt. Without warning, they do summerGreenland, Josh Willis crouched in the back
saults, even ones as large as aircraft carriers.
of a World War II-era DC-3.
This can swamp fishing boats and smear the
He wore a blue NASA jumpsuit and
water with white ice bits for miles.
cradled a 3-foot-long metal tube. He peeled
Over time, ice melts below the big icebergs,
off a sticker that said “REMOVE BEFORE
enough to clear that 800-foot-deep speed
LAUNCHING.” Setting the tube down, he
bump. Freed from the fjord, they float into
opened a round metal hatch in the floor.
the open ocean, propelled now by powerful
Through the hole, you could see the Ilulissat
currents.
Icefjord below.
But this traffic jam had long given OMG
Willis has a cherubic face and those long
fits. The NASA crew needed space in the waElvis sideburns. Mention that he looks like
ter to drop their probes, and sometimes the
Elvis and he lowers his voice and answers
bergs were bumper to bumper. A few days
with the King’s trademark, “Thank you
before, they’d found an opening to drop a
very much.” He’s a graduate of Second City’s
40 miles inland.
probe. But it didn’t broadcast any data. Now
of the Ilulissat Glacier, also known as Jakobshavn,
comedy school in Los Angeles and has done
sculptures are chunks of ice that have broken off
they were back for another try.
Bay outside Ilulissat on Aug. 10. The giant ice
shows on Hollywood Boulevard. His perforA fishing boat is dwarfed by an iceberg in Disko
And Willis badly wanted the measureclimate
—
water
and
oil
of
bit
a
are
mances
ments, in part because of what they’d discovscience and comedy. But he thinks that scienered a few years before.
tists could do a better job talking about their
discoveries, and humor helps. For a science
communication contest a few years ago, he
Clithe
called
and friends did a music video
The probes do two simple things: measure
mate Rock. In it, an 11-year-old asks, “What
water temperature and saltiness. But they do
is climate?” Willis, in a 1970s Elvis jumpsuit,
this in a complex way: After Willis pushes
sings:
the tube down the chute, a parachute opens,
“You take a bunch of weather and you averslowing the probe to about 60 mph before it
age it together and you’re doing the Climate
hits the water. A battery that uses saltwater
Rock!”
to generate a charge then triggers a second
Climate Elvis was born.
probe.
Willis has a more serious day job: climate
Tethered by an unspooling wire, the second
scientist with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboraup
beaming
part sinks toward the seabed,
tory in Pasadena, Calif. He leads the agency’s
data to the plane. Satellites and aerial surveys
OMG project, which does not stand for “Oh
can’t measure temperature and salinity deep
My God,” though Willis does find himself
in the sea, Willis explained. “So you have to
saying that when he looks below and sees
put a thermometer in it.” And they need to
Greenland’s cathedrals of ice. It stands for
do this from a plane because of Greenland’s
Oceans Melting Greenland, a title he cooked
size — nearly 1,700 miles from its northern
up a decade ago as a catchy way to describe
tip to its southern, or roughly the distance
the project’s central question: Do warming
between Charleston and Denver.
oceans affect Greenland’s ice sheet?
The OMG flights began in 2016. Flying low,
Which is how he ended up throwing things
they dropped about 250 probes around the
out of airplanes.
entire country that year. Almost immediately, they stumbled on something unexpected.
The Ilulissat Glacier was growing.
This was surprising because Ilulissat is
The Ilulissat Glacier is a key OMG target
Laboratory, watches through the
known in scientific circles as a global floodand one of the most important glaciers
Josh Willis, a climate scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion
DC-3 to measure the temperature
gate. Floodgates are massive faucets that
you’ve probably never heard of. It pours
window for a probe he dropped out of a 78-year-oldWillis, who leads the agency’s OMG
drain the ice sheet, and Ilulissat’s melt is so
14.
into a large valley near the town of Ilulissat,
and salinity around the Ilulissat Glacier on Aug.
formidable it may have already contributed
says Greenland is shedding ice more than
which is pronounced illoo-lih-sat and means
project, short for Oceans Melting Greenland,
more to sea rise than any other single feature
“icebergs” in Greenlandic. The Ilulissat Glaseven times faster than in the 1990s.
north of Antarctica.
cier also goes by other names: Jakobshavn,
But the OMG data showed it was expandafter a Danish merchant, and still used by
“Now!” the pilot said.
ing for the first time in 20 years.
many scientists; and the Greenlandic name
major contribution to sea rise might be twice
“At first blush, it seemed like great news,”
“Twelve away,” Willis said, pushing the
givBut
glacier.
south
or
Kujalleq,”
“Sermeq
as large as previously thought.
Willis said.
probe down the chute.
pours into the ocean. Here, near
en all the giant icebergs, Ilulissat fits best.
As Willis readied the probe, summer heat
call it a dead glacier, though its meltwater still
It wasn’t.
The pilot banked left hard, looking for the
inland, pictured Aug. 5.
When a glacier no longer meets the ocean, scientists
About 40 miles from the sea, Illulisat Glawaves had smashed records in the western
created a shelf over the ocean has receded far
More readings showed that a large blob of
probe’s splash.
Ilulissat in western Greenland, a glacier that once
cier forms an 8-mile wall called a calving
United States and Europe. Willis wondered:
cold water had moved into the fjord, tempoIn the back, Willis and Wood waited for a
front. Here, ice moves toward the ocean at
Was the water in the Ilulissat Icefjord still
cooling the glacier like a big ice blanrarily
signal.
during
tripled
In the Southeast, this extra heat translates
150 feet per day — a pace that
getting warmer?
means higher sea levels, more record-breakket. This allowed the ice above and below to
of these storms, but physics and patterns siginto a 27 percent increase in torrential rainthe 1990s and 2000s. As it moves, it creates
ing floods. Where Charleston typically saw
grow. The glacier expanded again in 2017,
nal whether they’re getting worse.
storms — summertime downpours like one
a great white shelf over the water that breaks
CHAPTER 3
one or two tidal floods a few decades ago,
2018 and 2019.
Heat-trapping carbon dioxide levels in
that would soon hit North Charleston.
off, often violently.
last year we had 68. And that followed 2019’s
But in 2020, the cold water left the fjord.
the atmosphere haven’t been this high for
On warm days, the ice cracks like cubes
In the cockpit, a Canadian pilot named Jim
glacier
the
and
it,
replaced
all-time record of 89. It also means more wawater
Warm
4 million years, an increase due largely to
after they’ve been dropped in a warm drink,
Haffey saw a few openings in the ice floe.
ter in people’s homes and yards, even when
shrank. Bad news for places like Charleston,
CHAPTER 4
the burning of coal, gas and other fossil
except these cracks sound like thunderclaps
“This could work,” he said, motioning to a
it’s sunny.
New Orleans and other cities at or near sea
That same weekend, 3,000 miles south,
fuels. The average global temperature has
and shake your ribs. Chunks as large as skypatch about the size of a basketball court.
And all this warmer air and water fuels
level.
Hurricane Grace cartwheeled toward Verarisen 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit since 1975, and
“I like it,” said Mike Wood, a post-doctoral
scrapers crash into the water, launching ice
more intense storms, research shows. HurriFor the OMG scientists, “it was a home
cruz, Mexico — the strongest hurricane ever
physicists know that every increase like that
shards and spray. Some fractures release so
researcher at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboracanes are intensifying more rapidly; they’re
run,” Willis said.
recorded in that region. Tropical Storm Fred
means the air can hold 7 percent more moisBut before that happens, let’s get out of the
much energy that geologists call them glacial
tory.
forming earlier in the season; they’re dumpIt proved their hypothesis: What’s happenpounded the Florida Panhandle, flooding
ture. Put another way: In a warming world,
sweatbox, head back to the Arctic, where fly“Let’s give it a shot,” Willis said, loading the
quakes. Earthquake instruments across the
ing more rain. Last year, the overheated
ing hidden below the waves affected when
areas with 7 to 9 inches of rain as it moved
the buckets above our heads get larger.
ing over the Greenland ice sheet is one way
world detect the biggest calving events. In
probe into the chute.
waters of the Atlantic spawned a record 30
and how glaciers melted. And it showed that
inland toward the Carolinas. Henri formed
At the same time, ocean temperatures are
to get a sense of things. Another way is to go
2008, a crew for the documentary “Chasing
The old plane dove. The icebergs grew largstorms, so many that forecasters began usEast Coast, beginning its destructive
warming waters of the Atlantic and its
the
the
off
in
Warmer
1901.
collapse
feet.
wall
700
since
ice
below
the
degrees
of
Put boots with metal crampons
1.5
ticked
part
up
smaller.
rising,
altimeter
watched
even
Ice ”
er. The
ing Greek letters to name storms.
undulating currents drove that melt.
trek to Rhode Island.
water naturally expands. And more volume
600.
a roar of thunder and white. The chunk was
Based on this OMG work, scientists were
You can’t pin climate change as the cause
larger than 3,000 Egyptian pyramids.
500.
able to calculate that Greenland’s already
All this falling ice flows down a fjord that’s

PHOTOGRAPHS BY LAUREN PETRACCA/STAFF

The world's largest island

•••

First Place:
Photo Page Design
(with Chad Dunbar
and Matthew Fortner)

GREENLAND

CANADA
U.S.

Greenland is so
large these states
could fit within its
borders. And nearly
all of it is covered
with ice. The
average thickness of
the ice is 1 mile, with
some parts as much
as 10,000 feet thick.
NOTE:

CANADA

N .Y.
Penn.

•••

W. Va .
Va .

N.J.

N.C.
Ga.

S.C.

Fla.
0

250 mi

SOURCE: ESRI

•••

Fortner

Signal

Heart

Lyberth, as he steps toward the edge of a
memory if you slip.
The ice itself is hard but soppy. Walking on
it, you see more small cracks than you might
expect. But it’s the blue hues around you that
grab the eyes. Set against the white, the blues
are so vibrant they seem at once pure and
Please see GREENLAND, Page A12

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PC-1991322-1