Crisscrossing Glaciers

A view of crisscrossing glaciers on Canada's Baffin Island as seen out the window of a 747-400 on Jan. 23, 2015. (Photo: ©Tom Yulsman) Pic of the Day For a flight back from Europe on Jan. 23, I knew our great circle routing would take us very far north. So I made sure to snag a window seat in hopes that I'd get a chance to shoot some photos of ice sheets, glaciers and sea ice. I wasn't disappointed. I shot the photo above with my iPhone as we cruised over Auyuittuq National Park of Canada on Baffin Island. We had just crossed over the Davis Straight from Greenland and had made landfall in North America. I was struck by the lighting and the crisscrossing glaciers. This area is very close to the Arctic Circle, so the day was only four hours long. That meant it was close to sunset when we were passing overhead — and the light was simply magical. I decided to publish this as a Pic of the Day after seeing a pair of images of crisscrossing glaciers in Greenland on NASA's Earth Observatory site. Here's one of them: