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Greenland ice sheet as seen from space. An ice sheet is a body of ice which covers a land area of continental size - meaning that it exceeds 50,000 km 2. [4] The currently existing two ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica have a much greater area than this minimum definition, measuring at 1.7 million km 2 and 14 million km 2, respectively.
In glaciology, an ice cap is a mass of ice that covers less than 50,000 km 2 (19,000 sq mi) of land area (usually covering a highland area). Larger ice masses covering more than 50,000 km 2 (19,000 sq mi) are termed ice sheets .
This causes the term "polar ice cap" to be something of a misnomer, as the term ice cap itself is applied more narrowly to bodies that are over land, and cover less than 50,000 km 2: larger bodies are referred to as ice sheets. The composition of the ice will vary. For example, Earth's polar caps are mainly water ice, whereas Mars's polar ice ...
In ice sheets, domes may reach a thickness that may exceed 3,000 meters (9,800 feet). However, in ice caps, the thickness of the dome is much smaller, measuring roughly up to several hundred metres in comparison. [5] In glaciated islands, ice domes are usually the highest point of the ice cap. [5]
It is believed that the loss of the ice sheet would take between 2,000 and 13,000 years, although several centuries of high emissions may shorten this to 500 years. 3.3 m (10 ft 10 in) of sea level rise would occur if the ice sheet collapses but leaves ice caps on the mountains behind, and 4.3 m (14 ft 1 in) if those melt as well.
The Greenland ice sheet is an ice sheet which forms the second largest body of ice in the world. It is an average of 1.67 km (1.0 mi) thick, and over 3 km (1.9 mi) thick at its maximum. [ 2 ] It is almost 2,900 kilometres (1,800 mi) long in a north–south direction, with a maximum width of 1,100 kilometres (680 mi) at a latitude of 77°N ...
The Barnes Ice Cap, containing remnants of the Laurentide Ice Sheet. Its melting also caused major disruptions to the global climate cycle, because the huge influx of low- salinity water into the Arctic Ocean via the Mackenzie River [ 5 ] is believed to have disrupted the formation of North Atlantic Deep Water , the very saline, cold, deep ...
Radar measurements of the north polar ice cap found the volume of water ice in the layered deposits of the cap was 821,000 cubic kilometers (197,000 cu mi), which is equal to 30% of the Earth's Greenland ice sheet. (The layered deposits overlie an additional basal deposit of ice.) The radar is on board the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. [32]