Weather-Related

NASA has released what it calls the “coolest, most illustrative video” of its kind ever.  The video shows stunning new images of earth, highlighting climate changes and how the weather in one part of the planet impacts the rest of us. 

The cryosphere is the part of the Earth’s surface where water is found in solid form.  This includes areas of snow, sea ice, glaciers, permafrost, ice sheets and icebergs.  In these areas, surface temperatures remain below freezing for a portion of each year.  Since ice and snow exist relatively close to their melting point, they frequently change from solid to liquid and back again due to fluctuations in surface temperature. 

Although direct measurements of the cryosphere are often difficult due to remote locations of these areas, scientists can use satellites to monitor changes in the global and regional climate by observing how regions of the Earth’s cryosphere shrink and expand.

This new NASA animation shows fluctuations in the cryosphere from a variety of satellite-based sensors.  The animation begins in Antarctica, showing some unique features of the Antarctic landscape found nowhere else on earth.  You can clearly see ice shelves, ice streams, glaciers, and the formation of massive icebergs in Antarctica.

A time-lapse shows the movement of iceberg B15A, a massive iceberg 183 miles long which broke off of the Ross Ice Shelf in 2000.  Moving farther along the coastline, a time-lapse of the Larsen ice shelf shows the collapse of over 1,235 square kilometers ice since January 2002.  As we depart from the Antarctic, we see the seasonal change of sea ice and how it nearly doubles the apparent area of the continent during the winter.

Continue the Tour of the Cryosphere

Here’s a CNN news report that highlights the new NASA video: