Copenhagen ICE BEAR

Frostpaw the polar bear with the melting ice bear.

Artist Mark Coreth and his team from the Ice Bear Project carved this beautiful polar bear out of ice on December 5, 2009, in Copenhagen’s Nytorv (New Square). The bear stands at the head of a stunning photographic exhibition in the World Wildlife Fund International Arctic Program’s Arctic Tent — and it’s melting away as you read this, revealing a bronze skeleton. Those who touch the bear help to sculpt its shape, a fact that the Ice Bear Project hopes will bring home to each person how humanity has the power to affect the delicate balance of nature.

At 1.8 meters (5.9 feet) high, the ice bear’s height is exactly the same as the average thickness of the floating sea ice in the Arctic Ocean measured during the Catlin Arctic Survey earlier this year. Scientists have observed that ice less than two meters thick is almost certainly too thin to survive the summer melting season.