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LETTERS: The man behind the pictures

A recent article about a chunk of ice seven times the size of Manhattan that suddenly collapsed along an ice shelf in Antarctica last month was an important wake-up call about the seriousness of global warming.

Although the article did not mention it, photographs of the collapse, reproduced in news stories around the world, were "taken" by Liu Cheng-chien (劉正千) of the Earth Dynamic System Research Center at National Cheng Kung University in Taiwan.

Internet sources tell us that the series of satellite images "taken" by Liu showed the Wilkins Ice Shelf as it began to break up late last month. The National Snow and Ice Data Center in the US processed the images from the NASA Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer sensor, which is attached to NASA's Earth Observing System Aqua and Terra satellites.

Liu serves as an engineer on the project and it was he who was responsible for taking the photos. It would be interesting to learn more about how he became involved in the project and how he "took" those amazing photos.

Dan Bloom

Chiayi
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