Before and after photos show how much we've reshaped planet Earth in the past 70 years

Before-and-after photos from the 1940s to the 2000s highlight the unmistakable impact humans have had on Earth.

Source: NASA

2021-04-22

Alaska's Muir Glacier pictured about 60 years apart shows how much ice and snow melted.

Source: National Ice and Snow Data Center

Snow melted on Matterhorn Mountain in Switzerland between the 1960s and the early 2000s.

Source: NASA

In the 1970s, NASA used satellite images to document deforestation in national parks. Here's Mount Elgon in Uganda pictured 30 years apart.

Source: NASA

The deforestation of Argentina's Salta Forest is starkly visible in this pair of photos taken almost 40 years apart.

Source: NASA

More deforestation is visible in Kenya's Mau Forest in these photos taken around the same time.

Source: NASA

The forest also shrunk in Kenya's Lake Nakuru National Park around the same time.

Source: NASA

Deforestation is also prevalent in the South American Atlantic Forest in Paraguay — here's how it looked in 1973 versus 2008.

Source: NASA

This area of Rondonia, Brazil was heavily deforested between 1975 and 2009.

Source: NASA

So was the Baban Rafi Forest in Niger, from 1976 to 2007.

Source: NASA

These images show the deforestation of Mount Kenya Forest in Kenya, between 1976 and 2007.

Source: NASA

Also in the 1970s, climate change began to take a more extreme toll on glaciers, like Qori Kalis Glacier in Peru, seen here in 1978 and again in 2011.

Source: NASA

These images document melting ice in Ecuador from1986 to 2007.

Source: NASA

In the 1980s, NASA documented shrinking lakes, starting with this photo of Great Sand Dunes National Park in Colorado in 1987. The same park is shown in 2011.

Source: NASA

The Aral Sea in Central Asia dried up drastically between 2000 and 2014.

Source: NASA

So did the Elephant Butte Reservoir in New Mexico. Here it is in 1994 and again in 2013.

Source: NASA

Rivers have been shrinking in Arizona and Utah as well — these images compare them in 1999 and 2014.

Source: NASA

Argentina's Mar Chiquita Lake shrunk significantly from 1998 to 2011.

Source: NASA

Deforestation continued to take a toll as time went on, as seen in these images of the Mabira Forest in Uganda in 2001 and the same area just 5 years later.

Source: NASA

Droughts have affected the US intensely over the past few years, too. Here are how quickly water dried up in Kansas between 2010 and 2012.

Source: NASA

Iran's shrinking Lake Urmia is pictured below between 2000 and 2013.

Source: NASA