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Flying Above Antarctica with NASA’s Operation IceBridge (15 photos)

Getty Images photographer Mario Tama recently spent several days accompanying NASA scientists making 12-hour research flights over West Antarctica. NASA’s Operation IceBridge has been studying how polar ice has evolved over the past eight years. The data and observations are being used to determine the state of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet—and whether it is in an irreversible state of decline, accelerating the global rise of sea levels. Tama reports that “NASA and University of California, Irvine researchers have recently detected the speediest ongoing Western Antarctica glacial retreat rates ever observed.”

A section of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet with mountains is viewed from a window of a NASA Operation IceBridge airplane on October 28, 2016 in-flight over Antarctica. NASA’s Operation IceBridge has been studying how polar ice has evolved over the past eight years and is currently flying a set of 12-hour research flights over West Antarctica at the start of the melt season. (Mario Tama / Getty)
http://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2016/11/flying-above-antarctica-with-nasas-operation-icebridge/506447/