Iceland’s Ok Glacier Melts Away
"These images show the latter stages of the decline of Okjökull, a melting glacier atop Ok volcano in west-central Iceland. (“Jökull” is Icelandic for “glacier.”) A 1901 geological map estimated that Okjökull spanned about 15 square miles (38 square kilometers). In 1978, aerial photography showed the glacier had shrunk to about 1 square mile (3 square kilometers). Today, less than half a square mile (less than 1 square kilometer) remains."
yep....noticed that too.
Um, no I didn't notice that at all. One effort shows data from 2004, mainly due to 2004 being such a major year for the Muir Glacier. The rest are pretty recent. 20% are from 2020. 75% from the last 5 years.
Unless you meant that any remote sensing data is from the past, even if taken seconds ago.
Satellite data usually takes a little while to be made public due to processing requirements (e.g. ICESat-2 was launched in 2018, but some higher level products haven't been produced yet.) Then researchers need time to figure out what the data is actually showing.
Also, regarding the images being a few years old, that’s obviously for security reasons. Satellite images made available to the public are never current for obvious reasons.