Planet Ice

Icebergs which have broken off from an Antarctic ice shelf float past the South Shetland Islands. James Martin's photographs of ice -- paradoxically powerful and fragile -- are the focus of a new book, "Planet Ice" (The Mountaineers Books).

The Long View

Photographer James Martin spends weeks at a time traveling and chronicling the effects of climate change with his camera. "When I saw what I loved, literally, melting in front of my eyes, I wanted to alert people," Martin told CBS News in an interview before the global climate change summit in Copenhagen.

Grinnell Glacier

One hundred and fifty years ago, the Grinnell Glacier in Montana's Glacier National Park filled this basin halfway to the summit ridge. Today, a patch of ice on a partially-frozen lake is all that remains.

Mer de Glace

Mer de Glace at Mont Blanc in the French Alps: photographed c. 1862, left, and today. The ice has lost approximately 1,000 feet of its thickness since the early 1900s.

Rhone Glacier

The Hotel Belvedere (as seen in the period postcard at left) was built a century ago so that tourists in the Swiss Alps could view the spectacle of the Rhone Glacier. Today visitors can see a mere remnant of the glacier -- and a mass of white rocks.

Melt Off

Pack ice 100 miles off the northeast coast of Greenland, far north of the Arctic Circle.

A Challenge

Discontinuous pack ice (as here, midway up Greenland's eastern coast) presents difficulties for polar bears, who must expend more energy swimming in their search for food.

Procession

In eastern Greenland icebergs move down a fjord to the sea. Between 2000 and 2008 Greenland lost 1,500 gigatons of ice mass. A gigaton is one billion tons.

Layers

Alternating white and blue-green layers on an iceberg in the South Orkney Islands. Blue ice occurs when air bubbles are compressed out of the ice, or when meltwater seeps into the cracks.

Blue Tunnel

A landscape of ice arches, tunnels and odd shapes appeared when a surface lake drained on the Greenland ice sheet.

Paulet Island, Antarctica

Martin said he is disturbed by recent polls showing fewer Americans than just a few years ago believe that the world is warming up. "It's disappointing, because the facts are clearly going the other direction," he said.

For information on "Planet Ice" and James Martin visit planeticebook.com.