For nine years, NASA has been conducting operation IceBridge, which consists of nine-hour long research flights over western Antarctica to monitor ice loss. Based on the IceBridge data, researchers believe that the West Antarctic Ice Sheet may be in a state of irreversible decline directly contributing to rising sea levels. On November 2, The National Climate Assessment, a study produced every 4 years by scientists from 13 federal agencies of the U.S. government, released a stark report stating that global temperature rise over the past 115 years has been primarily caused by "human activities, especially emissions of greenhouse gases."
