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Cold War Spy Imagery Shows Asian Glacier Melt Is Speeding Up

Declassified satellite film lets scientists see accelerated disappearance of the “water towers of Asia.”

Oblique view of Himalayan landscape captured by a KH-9 HEXAGON satellite on Dec. 20, 1975 on the border between eastern Nepal and Sikkim, India. 

Oblique view of Himalayan landscape captured by a KH-9 HEXAGON satellite on Dec. 20, 1975 on the border between eastern Nepal and Sikkim, India. 

Source: Josh Maurer/LDEO via Science Advances

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Himalayan glacier melt has doubled over the last 40 years, according to new research made possible by declassified cold war era satellite imagery.

The 650 glaciers under study in parts of China, India, Bhutan and Nepal were found to be melting at the rate of about 0.43 meters of water a year between 2000 and 2016, or twice as fast as they did between 1975 and 2000. About 13% of the ice seen in 1975 disappeared by 2000. In the next 16 years, another 15% of the original glaciers vanished.