Shelby Watts / The Canadian Press via AP
A pile of ice and debris nearly covers homes in Ochre Beach, in Canada's Manitoba province, May 11. Strong winds on Friday evening pushed the ice on Dauphin Lake ashore onto Ochre Beach, a summer community about 125 miles northwest of Winnipeg.
Read more from CBC News.
Editor's note: Image received May 19.
Michael Dalder / Reuters
Uwe Kiehl of team Germany I dives during a match at the Underwater ice hockey Championships in lake Weissensee in Austria on Feb. 17.
Michael Dalder / Reuters
Thomas Jurkschat and Uwe Kiehl of team Germany I concentrate on the surface before a match at the Underwater Ice Hockey Championships in lake Weissensee in Austria on Feb. 16.
Michael Dalder / Reuters
Team Germany I plays Austria II during a match at the Underwater Ice Hockey Championships in lake Weissensee in Austria on Feb. 17.
Michael Dalder / Reuters
Uwe Kiehl of team Germany I breathes on the surface during a match at the Underwater Ice Hockey Championships.
Michael Dalder / Reuters
Equipment is prepared before a match at the Underwater Ice Hockey Championships in lake Weissensee in Austria.
Underwater ice hockey is played upside-down underneath the ice of frozen lakes with a floating puck by teams of two divers in wet suits and flippers. Reuters photographer Michael Dalder made these unique pictures on assignment covering the Underwater Ice Hockey Championships in Austria.
Dalder, also a diver, wrote about his adventures in Reuters' Photographers Blog:
I’ve been diving for almost 15 years, but due to family matters it has fallen off my list lately. So a new picture assignment at Lake Weissensee in mid-February 2013 just came right to my diver’s heart: The Underwater Ice hockey Championships.
Ice diving is, together with cave diving, considered to be the most dangerous diving discipline. For that reason I listened to the security briefing attentively. Continue reading.
Felix Kaestle / EPA
A windsurfer jumps over waves in heavy winds on the Lake Constance in front of the partially snow-covered Swiss Alps, in Fischbach, Germany, Feb. 5.
Mike Groll / AP
Adam Bloss of Rochester, N.Y., an inmate at the Moriah Shock Incarceration Correctional Facility, cuts ice blocks from Lake Flower to be used in the construction of the Saranac Lake Winter Carnival ice palace on Jan. 28, in Saranac Lake, N.Y.
Mike Groll / AP
Inmates from the Moriah Shock Incarceration Correctional Facility line up before helping construct the Saranac Lake Winter Carnival ice palace on Jan. 28, in Saranac Lake, N.Y.
By Michael Hill, The Associated Press
It's a far cry from breaking rocks in the hot sun on a chain gang. In New York's Adirondack Mountains, inmates break ice on a frozen lake to make a giant winter palace.
A work crew from an area "shock" prison camp once again this year helped local volunteers create this mountain village's lakeside ice palace — the shimmering centerpiece of the annual Saranac Lake Winter Carnival, starting Friday.
Under snowy skies this week, inmates marched onto the frozen lake in military formation in winter-weight prison greens and hard hats. Working alongside the volunteers, they were handed poles to break off blocks or head-high saws to cut through the ice. Others in the boot camp-style incarceration program were dispatched to the tall walls of the palace with buckets of slush to fit between blocks like mortar.
"Sir, yes sir! This is an experience of a lifetime, sir," said inmate Patrick O'Donnell. The 24-year-old from Long Island, like all inmates at Moriah Shock Incarceration Correctional Facility, answers questions like a new military recruit.
"Sir, where I live there's not much snow, so to see something like this is an experience, sir."
Moriah, about 45 miles from Saranac Lake through twisting mountain roads, houses a six-month shock program designed to build character and self-esteem.
Prisoners convicted of nonviolent offenses like burglary, forgery or drug sales can shave months or years off their sentences by successfully completing a shock program — but it's tough. Inmates wake up at 5:30 a.m. for intense days of exercise, academics and substance abuse treatment.
Mike Groll / AP
Volunteer Jeff Branch, top, and inmates from the Moriah Shock Incarceration Correctional Facility, work on the Saranac Lake Winter Carnival ice palace on Jan. 28, in Saranac Lake, N.Y.
Mike Groll / AP
Inmates from the Moriah Shock Incarceration Correctional Facility, wearing green, work with volunteers breaking off ice blocks from Lake Flower that will be used to construct the Saranac Lake Winter Carnival ice palace on Jan. 28, in Saranac Lake, N.Y.
Mike Groll / AP
Naquan Shideo from the Brooklyn borough of New York, an inmate at the Moriah Shock Incarceration Correctional Facility, uses slush water to seal ice blocks while helping construct the Saranac Lake Winter Carnival ice palace on Jan. 28, in Saranac Lake, N.Y.
Mike Groll / AP
Inmates from the Moriah Shock Incarceration Correctional Facility, wearing green, work with volunteers breaking off ice blocks from Lake Flower that will be used to construct the Saranac Lake Winter Carnival ice palace on Jan. 28, in Saranac Lake, N.Y.
Mike Groll / AP
An inmate from the Moriah Shock Incarceration Correctional Facility cuts ice blocks from Lake Flower that will be used to construct the Saranac Lake Winter Carnival ice palace on Jan. 28, in Saranac Lake, N.Y.
Related links:
Valdrin Xhemaj / EPA
Ekaterina Riazanova and Ilia Tkachenko of Russia perform during the Ice Dance Free Dance competition for the ISU Figure Skating European Championships in Zagreb, Croatia, Jan 25, 2013.
Antonio Bronic / Reuters
Sara Hurtado and Adria Diaz of Spain perform during the ice dance free dance program at the European Figure Skating Championships in Zagreb, Croatia, Jan. 25.
More ice skating in PhotoBlog:
Robert F. Bukaty / AP
A barge motors through arctic sea-smoke on its way out of Portland Harbor, where the temperature at sunrise was about minus 5 degrees, Thursday, in Portland, Maine. Arctic air kept a cold blanket of misery over the Northeast Thursday as the region experienced the kind of temperatures that have left the Upper Midwest shivering for days. Continue reading.
John Gress / Reuters
Arctic air has descended over the Northeast as the region experiences the kind of temperatures that have left the Upper Midwest shivering for days.
John Gress / Reuters
Firefighters spray down hot spots on an ice covered warehouse that caught fire Tuesday night in Chicago on Jan. 23. Fire department officials said it is the biggest fire the department has had to battle in years and one-third of all Chicago firefighters were on the scene at one point or another trying to put out the flames.
Scott Olson / Getty Images
A truck is covered in ice as firefighters help to extinguish a massive blaze at a vacant warehouse on Jan. 23 in Chicago, Ill.
Scott Olson / Getty Images
A firefighter helps to extinguish a massive blaze at a vacant warehouse on Jan. 23 in Chicago, Ill. More than 200 firefighters battled a five-alarm fire as temperatures were in the single digits.
Charles Rex Arbogast / AP
Chicago firefighters battle a five-alarm blaze in single digit temperatures at a warehouse on the city's South Side, Bridgeport neighborhood on Jan. 23 in Chicago.
By John Newland and Daniel Arkin, NBC News
A massive fire ripped through a warehouse in Chicago's South Side Tuesday night, as firefighters were hampered by bone-chilling temperatures so low that water froze on their uniforms.
The 170 firefighters on the scene battled the elements on two fronts as the monster blaze consumed a warehouse building, endangering an adjacent structure, while temperatures dipped into the single-digits.
“This is a major fire,” the Chicago Fire Department posted on Twitter, adding that the scale of the response -- five alarms plus two “special” calls for additional trucks -- was “extremely rare.” Continue reading.
Related: Chicago firefighters battle major blaze in freezing temperatures
Scott Olson / Getty Images
Firefighters work to extinguish a massive blaze at a vacant warehouse on Jan. 23 in Chicago.
Flames rekindled at a Chicago warehouse, which had ignited in fire Tuesday night. NBCNews.com's Dara Brown reports.
Viktor Drachev / AFP - Getty Images
A Belarus Orthodox believer plunges into icy waters as a priest blesses him on the eve of the Epiphany holiday in Pilnitsa some 30 km outside Minsk, on Jan. 18. Thousands of believers jump into holes cut in ice, braving freezing temperatures, to mark Epiphany, when they take part in a baptism ceremony.
Sergei Ilnitsky / EPA
A man is moments before having an ice water bath during the celebrations of the Epiphany Orthodox holiday in Moscow Friday. Moscow's temperature dropped below minus 11 degrees Celsius.
Viktor Drachev / AFP - Getty Images
People believe that dipping into blessed waters during the holiday of Epiphany strengthens their spirit and body.
NSIDC
This visualization shows Saturday's extent of Arctic sea ice, as charted by the National Snow and Ice Data Center. The readings have been overlaid on NASA imagery of the Northern Hemisphere. The orange line indicates the median extent of sea ice on the same calendar date for the 1979-2000 time period.
If Santa Claus is getting the feeling that someone's looking over his shoulder as he rushes to make his Christmas deadline, he's not wrong: A succession of satellites is monitoring his North Pole workshop and the rest of the Arctic on a daily basis. Based on the satellite readings, the long-term outlook is worrisome, for Santa and the rest of us as well.
This image shows the extent of Arctic sea ice, based on the latest microwave data from the Pentagon's DMSP-F17 satellite. Those readings are compared against the median extent for the same date over the 1979-2000 time frame. That median extent is indicated on the photo by the orange lines.
Earlier this month, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said in its annual "Arctic Report Card" that glaciers and sea ice retreated at a record rate this year, and that sea level rise has accelerated in the region. What's more, those changes are affecting ecosystems in the far north — spurring marine phytoplankton growth while putting extra pressure on land species such as lemmings and the Arctic fox.
There's also a spillover effect on ecosystems farther south. "What happens in the Arctic doesn't always stay in the Arctic," NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco said. "We're seeing Arctic changes in the ocean and the atmosphere that affect weather patterns elsewhere."
Keep tabs on those changes by checking in with NBC News' environmental coverage. For more visualizations of Arctic as well as Antarctic ice data, check out this reference page at the "Watts Up With That" blog. You can also scan NASA's report about this summer's retreat of the Arctic's ice cover. And for something completely different, here are 10 things you may not have known about the North Pole.
Today's visualization of the North Pole's ice is the latest offering from the Cosmic Log Space Advent Calendar, which features daily images of Earth from space through Christmas. Try these other visual goodies from the calendar:
Correction for 9:15 p.m. ET: I originally referred to the median extent of Arctic sea ice, but changed that reference to use "average" instead — which was an ill-advised move. Generally speaking, an "average" value refers to the mean, which can be quite different from the median. Here's an explanation from Purplemath that lays out the difference. Thanks to commenters for pointing out the distinction. (I also fixed a typo referring to "sea level rice.")
Jonathan Nackstrand / AFP - Getty Images
Work goes on at the construction site of the new Ice Hotel in the village of Jukkasjarvi in Swedish Lapland. The Ice Hotel, which gets a new design and is reconstructed every year, is dependent upon constant sub-freezing temperatures during construction and operation.
Jonathan Nackstrand / AFP - Getty Images
Sean Gallup / Getty Images
As temperatures drop and snow begins to fall, take a look at beautiful light displays from around the globe.
Editor's note: Images taken on November 16, 2012 and made available to NBC News today.
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Mario Tama / Getty Images
Ricky Perez unloads 300-pound blocks of ice from a brine tank to be sold at Arctic Glacier Premium Ice on July 17, 2012 in the Bronx borough of New York City.
Very hot temperatures are expected to extend from eastern Montana to the central and southern Plains and eastward to the Mid-Atlantic Wednesday, The Weather Channel reports, with highs of 95 to 105 degrees Fahrenheit. A few areas of Kansas could approach 110 degrees.
The ongoing heat wave means business is booming for companies selling ice, Getty Images reports.
"Right now we are selling these things like crazy," said Ricky Perez, an employee of Arctic Glacier Premium Ice in the Bronx. The blocks take three days to freeze in the tank and sell for $75.
Mario Tama / Getty Images
Ice blocks slide out from a brine tank.
Mario Tama / Getty Images
Ricky Perez prepares to unload 300-pound blocks of ice.
Mario Tama / Getty Images
Ricky Perez displays 300-pound blocks of ice as they freeze in a brine tank.
See related heat stories:
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Celebrating the warm summer months, as schools let out and the cooling off begins.
Stringer / Reuters
Tourists wait to see the rupture of the leading edge of the Perito Moreno glacier near the city of El Calafate in the Patagonian province of Santa Cruz, southern Argentina, March 2. As Perito Moreno moves forward, it cuts off a river feeding the lake. Water builds up pressure and slowly undermines the ice, forming a tunnel until ice comes tumbling down. The phenomenon repeats itself at irregular intervals, with the last major ice falls occurring in 2008. The glacier collapsed on March 4, 2012, after several large chunks broke off.
Ariel Molina / EPA
The Perito Moreno Glacier in Los Glaciares National Park, in southern Argentina, completed its break in the middle of a storm when the darkness and rain conspired to frighten hundreds of tourists waiting anxiously for the show on March 4. The breakdown process, which began on Feb. 29, was caused by the pressure of water above the ice dam, which began to crack to form an arch-shaped hole that ended up weakening and finally collapsing. The natural phenomenon happens infrequently -- from once a year to less then once a decade.
Andres Arce / Reuters
The Perito Moreno glacier is seen after the rupture of a massive ice wall near the city of El Calafate in the Patagonian province of Santa Cruz, southern Argentina, March 4, 2012. The glacier, a massive tongue of ice in the Santa Cruz province that covers 250 square kilometres (97 square miles), advances yearly into a lake, known as Lago Argentino.
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