Glacier

Glaciers are flowing masses of ice, created by years of snowfall and cold temperatures. Approximately one-tenth of Earth is covered by glaciers, including Antarctica and parts of Greenland, Iceland, Canada, Russia, and Alaska. Mountainous regions on every continent except Australia also contain glaciers. Glaciers have enormous powers to reshape the face of Earth. Even today, glaciers are altering how our planet looks, and they hold clues to its past and future.

How glaciers form

Glaciers are created in areas where the air temperature never gets warm enough to completely melt snow. After a snowfall, some or most of the snow may melt when it comes into contact with warmer ground temperatures. As the air temperature drops, the melted snow refreezes, turning into small ice granules called firn or névé (pronounced nay-VAY). As additional layers of snow accumulate on top, the firn underneath is compacted. When the accumulation reaches about 150 feet (46 meters) deep, the weight and pressure cause the lower layers to recrystallize into solid ice. As years pass, snow accumulates and the slab of ice grows steadily thicker. Eventually the mound of ice becomes too massive to sit still, and gravity pulls the ice downhill. Once the ice begins to move, it is considered a glacier.

Types of glaciers

Glaciers that flow down a valley from high mountainous regions usually follow paths originally formed by rivers of snowmelt in the spring and summer. These valley or mountain glaciers end in a valley or ocean, and tend to increase the sharpness and steepness of the surrounding mountains along the way. In the Alps, a mountain system in south-central Europe, there are more than 1,200 valley glaciers.

Piedmont glaciers are large, gently sloping ice mounds. Also known as lakes of ice, piedmont glaciers form when a valley glacier reaches the lowlands or plain at the foot of a mountain and spreads out. These are common in Alaska, Greenland, Iceland, and Antarctica.

Glaciers that form in small valleys on the sides of mountains are called ice caps. Found in Norway, Iceland, Greenland, and Antarctica, ice caps usually do not move out of their basinlike area.

The largest form of glacier is called a continental glacier, a huge ice sheet that moves slowly outward from its center. Ice sheets may cover hundreds of thousands of square miles, and are so heavy that they cause the rock underneath to compress into Earth. The largest continental glacier is found on Antarctica, where the ice is more than 2.5 miles (4 kilometers) thick at its center, and hides entire mountain ranges beneath its surface. It extends more than 5 million square miles (12.9 million square kilometers). The Antarctic ice sheet accounts for 90 percent of all the ice in the world, and contains more water than all of Earth's rivers and lakes put together.

Words to Know

Continental glacier: The largest form of and slowest moving glacier, covering large expanses of a continent.

Glacial till: Rock and soil scoured from Earth and transported by a glacier, then deposited along its sides or at its end.

Greenhouse effect: The warming of Earth's atmosphere due to water vapor, carbon dioxide, and other gases in the atmosphere that trap heat radiated from Earth's surface.

Ice age: Period of glacial advance.

Ice caps: Smaller glaciers that form in basinlike depressions in a mountain.

Kettle lakes: Bowl-shaped lakes created by large ice blocks, which formed depressions in Earth's surface.

Meltwater: Melted ice in the glacier's bottom layer, caused by heat that develops as a result of friction with Earth's surface.

Moraines: Large deposits of glacial till that form hills.

Piedmont glacier: Large, gently sloping glaciers found at the foot of mountains, which are fed by alpine glaciers.

Surging: A sudden increase in a glacier's movement as a result of meltwater underneath decreasing its friction.

Valley glacier: Glacier that forms at a high elevation in a mountain region and flows downhill through valleys originally created by rivers.

Glaciers' effects

Most glaciers that exist today are remnants of the last glacial period from 1,800,000 to 11,000 years ago. As glaciers advance and retreat, they plow through rock, soil, and vegetation like a huge bulldozer, altering everything they come into contact with. Ice acts like an adhesive, scooping up rocks and soil that add to the glacier's tremendous powers of erosion.

Thus, a river valley that was once V-shaped becomes U-shaped; the rocks and soil carried with the glacier, known as glacial till, are deposited in huge mounds along the sides and at the end of the glacier, creating entirely new hills, or moraines. Chunks of ice buried in this till create large depressions that later became what are known as kettle lakes.

Glaciers also scour the land to great depths, creating larger lakes such as the North American Great Lakes. During the last ice age, Earth's surface was depressed due to the weight of the glaciers. As the glaciers retreated, Earth's crust rose upward like a sponge. This crustal rebounding, as it is called, is still occurring at slow rates in parts of North America and Europe.

Most glaciers move fairly slowly, only inches to a few feet per day. When large amounts of ice melt under the glacier as a result of friction with Earth's surface, the meltwater acts like grease to rapidly increase its movement. This sudden increase in speed is called surging.

Clues to Earth's past and future

While the effects of glaciers tell us where they have occurred in the past, present glaciers are providing clues as to variations in climate over time and potential changes in the future. Scientists continue to debate the reasons why ice ages occur, but there seems to be agreement that glaciers increase on the planet when Earth rotates farther away from the Sun. When Earth rotates closer to the Sun, glaciers retreat.

The U.S. National Academy of Sciences has predicted that if global temperatures rise from 1.5 to 5°F (0.75 to 2.5°C) over the twenty-first century as a result of the greenhouse effect, significant portions of Earth's glaciers could melt. (The greenhouse effect is the warming of Earth's atmosphere due to water vapor, carbon dioxide, and other gases in the atmosphere that trap heat radiated from Earth's surface.) Because glaciers hold 75 percent of the world's freshwater supply, such a meltdown would result in massive flooding of every continent's coastlines, drastically altering the shapes of every continent on Earth.

Ice core samples taken from Antarctic ice also have provided evidence of Earth's climate over the last 160,000 years. Data has shown a direct link between warming and cooling trends and the amount of two greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide and methane, in the atmosphere. These same cores show significant increases in both gases in the past 200 years.

Scientific reports issued at the beginning of the twenty-first century indicate that mountain glaciers from Montana to Mount Everest to the Swiss Alps were in a stage of retreat. In the Alps, scientists have estimated that by 2025 glaciers will have lost 90 percent of the ice that was there a century ago. Glacier melting, however, is generally quickest in and near the tropics. Ancient glaciers in the Andes have recently melted at an extraordinary rate. Between 1998 and 2000, one Peruvian glacier pulled back 508 feet (155 meters) a year. And Mount Kilimanjaro in the African country of Tanzania has lost 82 percent of the icecap it had when it was first carefully surveyed in 1912. At the current rate, scientists believe the icecap will disappear before 2015. Scientists theorize that all of these factors indicate that a global warming trend is taking place and that it is at least partly caused by gases released by human activities.

[See also Antarctica; Greenhouse effect; Ice ages; Icebergs ]

Glacier

Introduction

A glacier is a mass of ice larger than 247 acres (one tenth of a square kilometer) that starts on land, but can move out over coastal waters in polar regions where calving (breaking apart) produces icebergs. All glaciers move as the result of their weight and gravity. Glaciers require a specific cold climate to exist.

There are three types of glaciers: alpine glaciers in mountain valleys; piedmont glaciers near the base of mountain ranges where glacier masses have combined; and continental glaciers, which are called ice sheets when they are very large. Continental glaciers have covered vast areas of Earth at different times through history.

When glaciers advance they change the landscape. When they retreat, tell-tale signs are left behind. Paleoclimatologists studying the signs left from retreating ancient glaciers have discovered that massive glaciation occurred fairly regularly. Past glaciation cycles appear to be related to subtle changes in solar radiation. Scientists are actively looking for answers to how human activities that are already causing climate changes will influence Earth's glaciation cycles in the future.

Historical Background and Scientific Foundations

Glaciers start where more snow falls in the winter than melts in the summer. First, a snow field collects. Through successive freezing and thawing the snow becomes grain-sized ice called firn. Over time, the snow field becomes an ice field. When the icy mass gets large enough so it begins to move, it is called a glacier.

Alpine glaciers move down the mountain in channels, scouring the walls to form characteristic U-shaped valleys called cirques. A piedmont glacier forms where several glaciers combine at the foot of mountains. These are common in Alaska.

A glacier picks up surface soil and rocks and carries the load (called till) forward with the ice. When the glacier recedes, till is dropped. Till that is dropped in front of a receding glacier is known as a terminal moraine. The overall landscape left behind a retreating continental glacier is irregular. Glaciated landscape features include hollows that are collectively described as kettle drum topography. Boulders are scarred as they are carried for hundreds of miles or kilometers to new locations. They are called erratics because the rock type is not consistent with the area where the boulders are dropped.

In the mid-1800s, Swiss-born geologist Louis Agassiz (1807–1873) first suggested the concept of continental glaciers when he noticed evidence of glacial changes in the landscapes over large areas of Canada that resembled the glaciated alpine landscapes of Switzerland. Subsequently geologists determined there was not one but a series of periods in ancient history where large glaciers covered up to 32% of the total land area of Earth.

Evidence that there have been eight Ice Age cycles over the past 750,000 years has been collected from deposits left behind on land, and sea floor sediments. Evidence also comes from ice core samples taken from Greenland and Antarctica where continental glaciers that date back to the Ice Ages still cover most of the land area.

Impacts and Issues

Each period of vast continental glaciation was separated by a warmer interglacial period that lasted about 10,000 years. Serbian engineer Milutin Milankovitch (1879–1958) developed a mathematical explanation for the Ice Ages based on variations in solar radiation. The Milankovitch theory is in close agreement with 20,000, 40,000, and 100,000 year cycles of glaciation. The most recent Ice Age began about 70,000 years ago, peaked about 20,000 years ago and ended about 10,000 years ago. Since inter-glacial periods were generally around 10,000 years, Earth could be approaching another Ice Age.

There is a big question about Earth's future that was not considered by Milankovitch. Where climate was controlled by natural cyclical variations in solar radiation in the past 750,000 years, it may not be controlled only by natural causes in the future. Human activities have changed the climate through greenhouse gases emitted from the widespread use of fossil fuels. Carbon dioxide and methane levels are higher in the atmosphere in the twenty-first century than they have been in any previous interglacial period.

WORDS TO KNOW

CALVING: Process of iceberg formation when huge chunks of ice break free from glaciers, ice shelves, or ice sheets due to stress, pressure, or the forces of waves and tides.

GLACIATION: The formation, movement, and recession of glaciers or ice sheets.

ICE AGE: Period of glacial advance.

KETTLE DRUM: Usually termed a kettle: depression or sinkhole left in a mass of rocky debris by a retreating glacier. A large, isolated chunk of ice buried in debris melts, causing a collapse of the overlying debris.

MORAINE: Mass of boulders, stones, and other rock debris carried along and deposited by a glacier.

PALEOCLIMATOLOGY: The study of past climates, throughout geological history, and the causes of the variations among.

PIEDMONT: A region of foothills along the base of a mountain range.

Glaciers along the coast of Greenland are melting at record rates as a result of global warming. Since glaciers contain 70% of Earth's freshwater, when they melt the freshwater changes the dynamics of the ocean water around them. Melting glaciers also cause the sea level to rise. Global warming is adding to sea levels rising as the oceans get warmer and expand. Where glaciers need a very specific cold climate to form, there is no easy answer to the question of when the next Ice Age will start.

See Also Glaciation; Glacier Retreat; Ice Ages.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Books

Lurie, Edward. Louis Agassiz:A Life in Science. John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, MD: 1996.

Weart, Spencer R. The Discovery of Global Warming. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA: 2004.

Web Sites

“All About Glaciers.” National Snow and Ice Data Center, 2007. < http://www.nsidc.org/glaciers> (accessed August 16, 2006).

“Atmospheric Changes.” U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 2007. < http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/science/recentac.html> (accessed August 16, 2007).

“Past Climate Cycles: Ice Age Speculations.” American Institute of Physics, 2007. < http://www.aip.org/climate/cycles.htm> accessed August 16, 2007).

“The Physical Environment: Glacial Systems.” University of Wisconsin Stevens Point, 2007. < http://www.uwsp.edu/geo/faculty/ritter/geog101/textbook> (accessed August 16, 2007).

glacier A large mass of ice that rests on a land surface and moves, because snow accumulated in the accumulation zone changes into firn and then into glacier ice and provides input to the system. Glaciers may be classified in several ways. The most useful division (as it relates to work done) is based on temperature and three categories are recognized. In temperate (or warm) glaciers (e.g. those of the Alps) the ice is at pressure melting point throughout, except during winter when the top few metres may be well below 0°C. Movement is largely by basal slip. Polar (or cold) glaciers (e.g. parts of the Antarctic sheet) have temperatures well below the pressure melting point and movement, which is slow, is largely by internal deformation. Subpolar glaciers (e.g. those of Spitzbergen) have temperate interiors and cold margins and so are composite. The morphological classification is based largely on the size, shape, and position of the ice mass, and cirque glaciers, valley glaciers, and piedmont glaciers are among the types recognized.

glacier A large mass of ice, resting on or adjacent to a land surface, and typically showing movement. Glaciers may be classified in several ways. The most useful division (as it relates to work done) is based on temperature, and three categories are recognized. In temperate (or warm) glaciers (e.g. those of the Alps) the ice is at pressure melting point throughout, except during winter when the top few metres may be well below 0°C. Movement is largely by basal slip. Polar (or cold) glaciers (e.g. parts of the Antarctic sheet) have temperatures well below the pressure melting point and movement, which is slow, is largely by internal deformation. Subpolar glaciers (e.g. those of Spitzbergen) have temperate interiors and cold margins and so are composite. The morphological classification is based largely on the size, shape, and position of the ice mass and cirque glaciers, valley glaciers, and piedmont glaciers are among the types recognized.

glacioisostasy The adjustment of the lithosphere following the melting of an ice sheet. The gradual rise of the land enables an estimation to be made of the flexural rigidity of the lithosphere and the viscosity of the mantle. Adjustments need to be made to gravity readings in previously glaciated areas to allow for this effect, which occurs on a regional scale. Some 1000 m of depression may have occurred in Scandinavia during the last ice age, where 520 m of recovery has been recorded. The process gives rise to warped shorelines. See GLACI-.