Cold War Spy Satellite Reveals
Just How Fast the Himalayas Are Losing Ice
Oblique view of Himalayan landscape captured by a KH-9 HEXAGON satellite on December 20, 1975 on the border between eastern Nepal and Sikkim, India. Image: Josh Maurer/LDEO
GIZMODO Brian Kahn
During the Cold War, spy satellites were constantly circling the Earth. But while the intent of those satellites is generally to track human activities, the imagery they captured has also proved to be a trove of scientific data.
The latest use of Cold War imagery has revealed a huge acceleration in Himalayan ice loss. The results published in Science Advances on Wednesday show that glaciers in the Himalayas are disappearing twice as fast this century as they were during the Cold War,
