I Spy, Via Spy Satellite: Melting Himalayan Glaciers
Scientists are using old spy satellite images to measure the effects of climate change. They're finding that glaciers in the Himalayas are melting twice as fast as they were a few decades earlier.
The world's glaciers are melting faster than before, but it still takes decades to see changes that are happening at a glacial pace.
To look back in time, researchers are turning to a once-secret source: spy satellite imagery from the 1970s and 1980s, now declassified. "The actual imagery is freely available for download on the USGS website, and people can use it," says Josh Maurer, a doctoral student at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory.
Maurer is the.
