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Why they matter. Glaciers, slow-moving rivers of ice, have sculpted mountains and carved valleys throughout Earth's history. They continue to flow and shape the landscape in many places today. But glaciers affect much more than the landscape. Glacier melt delivers nutrients into lakes, rivers, and oceans. Those nutrients can drive blooms of ...
A glacial lake is a body of water that originates from a glacier. It typically forms at the foot of a glacier, but may form on, in, or under it. As Earth’s climate warms, the world’s glaciers are shrinking, increasing freshwater outputs to all kinds of glacial lakes. Some communities depend on glacial meltwater for seasonal irrigation or ...
If all the lost or gained glacial ice were converted to water and spread evenly over glacier surface area, the depth of that water layer is the water equivalence. In the 2021 State of the Climate , the American Meteorological Society reported that average annual glacier mass balance in 2020/2021 was -900 millimeters (35.4 inches) water equivalent.
The cryosphere includes all of the snow and ice-covered regions across the planet. Explore our scientific content about what makes up this frozen realm, its importance to Earth's people, plants and animals, and what climate change means for the cryosphere and the world at large.
By Agnieszka Gautier. As Arctic sea ice melts to reveal the open ocean underneath, fragile coastlines become vulnerable to bigger waves from storms, leading to accelerated erosion that impacts people and wildlife. Like a layer of plastic wrap covering a bowl of soup, sea ice keeps the churning ocean underneath it from splashing up against the ...
glacial trough. a large u-shaped valley formed from a v-shaped valley by glacial erosion. Western Brook glacial trough, Newfoundland, Canada. The sheer walls of this glacial trough soar up to 700 m high, and the glacial basin is 500 m deep in places. Natural Resources Canada, copyright Terrain Sciences Division, Geological Survey of Canada. a ...
arete. sharp, narrow ridge formed as a result of glacial erosion from both sides. Topic (s): glaciers. Subscribe to Our Newsletter.
Glaciers also exist on the fringes of ice sheets. Ice sheets cover entire continents. During the Last Glacial Maximum, roughly 20,000 years ago, the Laurentide Ice Sheet covered much of North America, and its weight created basins that now hold the Great Lakes. Currently, there are only two ice sheets on Earth: the Antarctic and Greenland Ice ...
glacial striations. grooves or gouges cut into the bedrock by gravel and rocks carried by glacial ice and meltwater; also called glacial grooves. Striated Graywackie, Yale Glacier, Alaska. 1997. Parallel striations and bedrock fracture trends (across the left side of the image) are clearly visible in this photo. Tom Lowell, University of ...
glacial erratic. a boulder swept from its place of origin by glacier advance or retreat and deposited elsewhere as the glacier melted; after glacial melt, the boulder might be stranded in a field or forest where no other rocks of its type or size exist. Erratic boulder, northeastern Manitoba, Canada. A sense of the size of the glacial erratic ...