During the Cold War , when tension were reaching break point between the West and the Soviet Union , knowledge was everything . But now the ream of data collected by US undercover agent satellites at the meter , and more importantly the images that they took , have been declassify , andthey are helping scientiststrack the retreat of glacier in remote region .
This patently has massive limitations , and means that the most remote parts of the pile range are never monitored . Yet inadvertently , the US undercover agent satellites set in motion to keep track of the Eastern Bloc had been taking reels of eminent - solution images of the entire region . The Hexagon delegation include 20 satellite , and carried an impressive60 milesof photographic picture show . Once a cannister was full , itwould be jettison , where it would fall to Earth and be intercepted mid - entry by a US aircraft .
By taking declassified pictures from the Hexagon artificial satellite , which showed the same mountain swan only from slightly different angles , a graduate scholar from Columbia University , Josh Maurer , created an automate process that turned these 2D images into 3D renderings , evidence how they looked in the previous 1970s .
“ It can take years for a glacier to to the full answer to a change in mood , so look back several decades gives us a good signaling , ” Maurersaid . “ While we have book change over the last decade or so from more modern remote sense program , glacier reply times can be longer than that . The declassified undercover agent planet datum allows for real ice volume changes over those longer time scales . ”
The 3D renderings have allowed investigator to get the first consistent flavour at the change that have been happening to the glaciers in the entire Himalaya over a 40 - year full stop . Maurer has been demo his effect at theAmerican Geophysical Unionmeeting this calendar week , but other work showed that the DoS of the glacier is not looking well . In Bhutan , for example , it seems that the glaciers have been lose an equivalent of 18 centimeters ( 7 inch ) over their entire open per year .
