In the frostiest campaign of the Cold War, the Central Intelligence Agency pointed covert satellite cameras toward Antarctica to map the frozen continent. Thirty-five years later, scientists are using declassified photographs from that mission to gain unparalleled insight into the behavior of Antarctica's icy cover. A comparison of the CIA photographs with more recent data reveals that a giant river of Antarctic ice has slowed 50 percent in 3 decades, a much bigger change than scientists had expected. The discovery, reported in the Jan. 30 SCIENCE, complicates attempts to predict whether melting Antarctic ice will contribute to rising sea levels in the next century, say scientists.
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