Earth’s Changing Face: A NASA Image Gallery

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Shoreline change, Mexico.
Left: August 7, 1993. Right: July 8, 2011. These images show changes to the western coastline of Sonora, Mexico due to the construction of shrimp farms over the past two decades. While the shrimp industry has generated profits and jobs, there have been concerns about its effect on the ecosystems of the region, and disputes have arisen about property rights to the communal coastal lands. Images taken by the Thematic Mapper sensor onboard Landsat 5. Source: “Aquaculture Changes Mexican Shoreline,” U.S. Department of the Interior / U.S. Geological Survey.

By NASA,

In celebration of this year’s Earth Day on April 22, NASA’s Webby Award-winning Global Climate Change website, has unveiled a new version of its popular image gallery, “State of Flux.

The gallery, presents stunning images, mostly from space, of our ever-changing planet, chronicling changes taking place over time periods ranging from days to centuries.

Each image pair in the continuously updated gallery highlights before-and-after impacts of change, including the destruction wrought by extreme events such as wildfires and floods, the retreat of glaciers caused by climate change, and the expanding footprint of urban areas due to population growth.

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In northern Tunisia, near the shore of the Mediterranean Sea, Ichkeul Lake and wetland are a major stopover point for hundreds of thousands of migrating birds, such as ducks, geese, storks and pink flamingoes, who come to feed and nest there. Ichkeul is the last remaining lake in a chain that once extended across North Africa. The Ichkeul National Park was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1986. The lake badly deteriorated as the result of the construction of three dams on rivers supplying it and its marshes. The dams cut off almost all inflow of fresh water, causing a destructive increase in the salinity of the lake and marshes. Reed beds, sedges and other fresh-water plant species have been replaced with salt-loving plants, with a consequent sharp reduction in the migratory bird populations dependent on the habitat the lake formerly provided. The Tunisian government plans to undertake various measures to retain freshwater in the lake on a year-round basis and reduce the salinity of the lake. Image and Captions: Images taken by the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) onboard NASA’s Terra satellite. Credit: NASA/GSFC/METI/ERSDAC/JAROS and the U.S./Japan ASTER Science Team.

The redesigned gallery, which currently features more than 160 comparison views, is now organized and sortable by categories, including ice, human impact, water, land cover and extreme events. A selection of some of the Global Climate Change website team’s favorite images is highlighted in a new “Top Picks” category.

Another new feature is a map view, which places each image into its geographical context. Guests can zoom in to specific locations on the map, or select by region, and see where particular changes are taking place around the globe. They can also share links to each image set and download high-resolution versions of the images.

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River changes, China.
The Yellow River Delta in China. Left: 2001. Right: 2009. The Yellow River is the second-longest river in China, and the sixth-longest in the world. It has been the cradle of Chinese civilization; but frequent devastating floods have also earned it the name of “China’s Sorrow.” Historical maps tell us that the river has undergone many dramatic changes in its course. Currently, the Yellow River ends in the Bohai Sea, yet its eastern terminus continues to oscillate from points north and south of the Shandong Peninsula. These images show the changes.Images taken by NASA’s Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) instrument. Caption adapted from the ASTER gallery. Courtesy of NASA/GSFC/METI/ERSDAC/JAROS and the U.S./Japan ASTER Science Team.

“Seeing our planet from space gives us a global view that we can’t get elsewhere,” said Amber Jenkins, editor of the Global Climate Change website, who established the gallery in 2009. “It underscores how fragile and interconnected our planet is, and how it is constantly changing. With this new version of the gallery, we want people to be better able to immerse themselves in the images, and gain that sense of perspective.”

NASA’s Global Climate Change website is devoted to improving the public’s understanding of Earth’s changing climate, providing easy-to-understand information about the causes and effects of climate change and how NASA studies it.

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Ice melt, McCarty Glacier, Alaska. Left: July 30, 1909. Right: August 11, 2004.

Original Article, NASA

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