"Despite typical glaciers’ massive sizes, monitoring them is not always an easy task. Only specific types of small glaciers are good measures of climate change. Some glaciers are too large to measure accurately, and others are simply too unpredictable. Once scientists find a suitable glacier, they must take satellite images of the ice for a minimum of five years and compare the results. They then have to look closely at the outside edge of the glacier (the glacier’s terminus). If a large percentage of the glacier’s edge is receding then the area around the ice is growing warmer, and if a large percentage is expanding then the area is growing cooler. When enough measurements from many different parts of the world have been gathered, the researchers can determine whether the earth is growing warmer or cooler" (NASA, 2018)
NASA. (2018) At the Edge: Monitoring Glaciers to Watch Global Change. https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/Glaciers
It was not long ago, in 1916, that the explorer Padre De Agostini surveyed part of the topography of the Escondidos glaciers (“hidden glaciers”, in English) in Patagonia (De Agostini, 1949). Today, space technology such as NASA’s ICESat Missions and Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) data, allow to monitor changes in glaciers over time.
