This time-lapse video clearly exemplifies the importance of deeply analyzing and understanding patterns over time in order to identify and assess transformations.

Using images from the NASA-USGS Landsat program dating back to 1972 and continuing through 2019, glaciologist Mark Fahnestock of the University of Alaska Fairbanks, has stitched together six-second time-lapses of every glacier in Alaska and the Yukon. The videos clearly illustrate what’s happening to Alaska’s glaciers in a warming climate. Some show surges that pause for a few years, or lakes forming where ice used to be, or even the debris from landslides making its way to the sea. Other glaciers show patterns that give scientists hints of what drives glacier changes.

Music credits: Inducing Waves, composer Ben Niblett [PRS] Jon Cotton [PRS]; Critical Pathway, composer Rik Carter [PRS]; Emerging Discovery, composer Rik Carter [PRS], all published by Atmosphere Music Ltd [PRS].

Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center Time-lapse videos courtesy of Mark Fahnestock, Geophysical Institute, University of Alaska Fairbanks Matthew R. Radcliff (USRA): Producer Kate Ramsayer (Telophase): Writer