Every day, weather, humans and natural phenomena team up to transform Earth's landscape.
And now, thanks to NASA's 'World of Change' series, you can see years of global change unfold in just seconds. That's because the space agency has been stringing together years of satellite photos into nifty animations that show the Earth changing over time.
Take, for instance, the animation above, which shows the rapid deforestation of the Amazon Rainforest in Brazil's Rondônia state over a nearly 12 year period from 2000 to 2012. Slowly but surely the lush green of the area's more than 80,000 square miles of forest quickly fades into taupe as deforestation claims more than 26,000 square miles of pristine forest.
The Amazon's destruction is just one example, here are a few more animations taken from NASA's World of Change series, sped up for your viewing convenience:
Canada's Athabasca Oil Sands
The animation above shows the growth of mining activity around Alberta, Canada's vast Athabasca oil sands -- home to 170 billion barrels of oil -- since 1984. As NASA notes, only 20 percent of the oil reserves are actually easily accessible near the surface, so in order to tap into the rest, mining companies have expanded the number of mines in the area over the last 30 years.
And as you can tell from the landscape change above, those mines are invasive. Heavy duty construction equipment digs up 720,000 tons of sand each day, NASA notes, carving holes up to 260 feet deep into the Earth.
Aral Sea, Kazakhstan/Uzbekistan
Once again, humans played a role in the animation above.
In the 1960s, the Soviet Union diverted the Aral Sea's two tributary rivers in order to irrigate the desert region surrounding the lake, according to a study from Columbia University . Worst, a large percentage of the water-between 25 percent and 75 percent, according to Columbia University-was simply soaked up by the desert and wasted.
Almost immediately the lake began drying up. Before the diversions, the Aral Sea was roughly 26,000 square miles in size, but in recent years has shrunk by more than 90 percent, reports NASA. What little water remained became a concentrated mess of salt, fertilizers and other contaminants used to facilitate agriculture in surrounding areas. Wind kicked up the pollutants and choked surrounding communities with hazardous dust storms.
Sadly, the situation has only become more dire for the Aral Sea. Just a couple of months ago, the entire eastern portion of the sea dried up , leaving behind only sand.
Lake Powell, Utah/Arizona
Lake Powell is actually a manmade reservoir created by the Glen Canyon Dam, which diverts water away from the Colorado River and into the expanse. The animation above shows the variation in water levels in the northeastern portion of the reservoir from 1999 to 2014. As NASA notes, Lake Powell is often strained by drought and an increasing demand of water from communities as far away as California.
When the animation kicks off in 1999 the water levels in Lake Powell are near capacity, but by 2005 that all changed, as drought claimed a large portion of the reservoir's fill. Lake Powell would rebound as the drought eased, but by 2012, drought once again threatened the water supply. And the last image, taken on May 2014, shows water levels at just 42 percent of capacity.
Cape Cod, Massachusetts
Unlike Canada's Oil Sands, or deforestation in Brazil, the animation above shows Earth change in an entirely natural way. For the last 30 years, the coastal barrier off of Chatham, Massachusetts, (shown above) has shifted south along the coast, constantly breaking up and forming new connections between the sandbars and islands that rest in the Atlantic Ocean.
As NASA points out, that movement is exactly what coastal barriers are designed to do . The sand from coastal barriers, like islands and spits, is picked up and moved by currents, winds and storms, and deposited elsewhere along the coast to form new islands and spits. These coastal barriers play an important part in the coastal ecosystem, protecting inland areas from high surf and winds, and providing a vital habitat for coastal species.
Storms played a key role in the transformation of the coastal barrier shown above. A storm in 1987 split what was known as 'North Beach' into two, forming South Beach Island. Then, in 2007, another storm wreaked havoc on North Beach, cutting out a slice of the northern expanse that turned 'North Beach' into 'North Beach Island.' By 2013, another storm sliced up South Beach Island, and the process continues today.
Mount St. Helens, Washington
It's hard to forget an event as catastrophic as the May 18, 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens, but the environmental recovery of the area is oft-ignored. The animation above shows just that, with the first image taken on August 29, 1979, before the eruption, and subsequent images showing the total destruction of the surrounding area, followed by environmental recovery, up to August 20, 2013. (The red in the first images are just the false color used by early satellites to highlight vegetation.)
The most active part of the animation (besides the collapse of the side of the mountain) occurs at the North Folk Toutle River, 14 miles of which was buried under up to 600 feet of debris from the eruption. In the 34 years since the eruption, meandering streams of the North Folk Toutle River have reemerged, carving paths through the buried area. Debris in Spirit Lake, just to the northeast of the mountain, breaks up and moves about the lake for the entirety of the animation. Greenery slowly reappears on the landscape, particularly further away from the site of the explosion.
According to NASA, even the area closest to the mountain is recovering, with scientists even rediscovering wildflowers growing in the devastated area.
Indus River, Pakistan
Like so many other river ecosystems, the one at the Indus River, which flows nearly 2,000 miles through Pakistan into India and even China, relies heavily on seasonal hydrological events in order to feed the river. So, the animation above shows the boom and bust cycles of the Indus River during the wet and dry seasons.
As NASA points out, from July to August, glacial melt from nearby mountain ranges couples with monsoon rains to dramatically swell and even flood the Indus. The first image in the animation shows a stretch of the Indus on June 6, 2009 before the wet season begins. The animation progresses quickly into the wet season and the Indus River expands, irrigating the land around the Indus' banks, turning the landscape a deep green.
Then, just as quickly, the season changes to dry, and once again the Indus shrivels up and the landscape fades to beige.
Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Humans often construct global change, too. That's certainly the case in Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, where construction crews have morphed a desert wasteland into a global destination over the last couple of decades. Some of those construction projects are seen in the animation above, which shows the urbanization of Dubai from November 2000 to April 2011, including one project that involved dredging up sand from the bottom of the Persian Gulf in order to piece together a collection of artificial islands in the shape of a palm tree.
Colors play an important part in the animation, which uses false-color satellite images. Red represents vegetation, water is dark blue , empty ground is brown and the many skyscrapers and buildings erected on the site are colored gray or light blue.
By the end of the animation the landscape looks nothing like it once did, with arid land replaced by a complex network of structures, roads and irrigated vegetation.
Larsen B Ice Shelf
Global change doesn't always take years to happen, either. In less than four months, from January 31, 2002 to April 13, 2002, a huge, 1,250 square mile chunk of the Larsen B Ice Shelf in Antarctica crumbled into the sea. NASA satellites captured the event as astonish scientists looked on.
Initial signs of the collapse show up in the first image. Rows of blue dots -- pools of melted ice that ran into the crevasses along the ice shelf -- hint at the instability of the site. Massive chunks of ice continuously broke off the ice shelf as it melted, littering the sea with large icebergs that fanned out across the melted expanse. By March 7, 2002, the color of the entire scene shifts to a brilliant glacial blue, caused by icebergs flipping over and revealing the pure, thick ice on the glacier's underside.
Eventually, snowfall settles on the site, and the entire ice mass begins to melt and drift out to sea.
NASA reports that increasingly warm summers coupled with warm ocean temperatures and strong winds and currents to set off the entire collapse.
Columbia Glacier, Alaska
A similar scene played out at Alaska's Columbia Glacier, albeit over the last three decades. In 1980, Columbia Glacier jutted out far enough to reach Heather Island in Columbia Bay. By 2014, the glacier had retreated more than 12 miles inland and the ice had lost nearly half of its thickness and volume , NASA reports.
The animation above shows Columbia Glacier's disappearance from July 29, 1986 to July 2, 2014. In these false-color satellite photos, the snow and ice is bright blue, vegetation is green and the ocean is dark blue.
From 1986 to 2002 the glacier slowly disappears from Columbia Bay, but then it rapidly retreats, and by September 2003 only empty ocean water remains in a space that was once completely occupied by glacier. Chunks of ice broke off and flooded the bay with icebergs in 2008, once again filling that part of Columbia Bay with ice. Rapid melting continued over the last few years, and the glacier is expected to reach the shoreline by 2030.
MORE ON WEATHER.COM: Glaciers in Retreat
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