Alaskan Ice in Retreat: 35 Years at Columbia Glacier

Watch the glacier crumble away as it retreats about 15 miles from its initial position in the 1980s.

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NASA images by Jesse Allen, Robert Simmon, Joshua Stevens, and Lauren Dauphin using data from Landsat 4, 5, 7, and 8 from the U.S. Geological Survey, and data from MODIS on NASA’s Terra satellite. Landsat program timeline by NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio. Photos by William Osgood Field and Austin Post, from the National Snow and Ice Data Center’s glacier photograph collection. Music, “Icelandic Arpeggios,” by DivKid. Video and narration by Kathryn Hansen.

Published February 10, 2022
Data acquired 1986 - 2021