A Crazy Glacier

Image taken from google images.

The ice sheet on Antarctica

This is the biggest glacier in the world.

The picture is showing aerial views of the ice sheet breaking on Antarctica. It shows big amounts of ice that has broken free within the last month.

Image taken from google images.

How Global Warming effects Glaciers

Glaciers around the world are shrinking due to global warming. They are shrinking inch by inch because of temperatures rising. The changes are not dramtic and are hard to see if you watch them for a while. But of years and years dramatic changes can be seen. If nothing is done to prevent global warming then by around 2030 glaciers could be melted.

How glaciers affect the earth

Glaciers carry materials as they move. These materials carve away the earth underneath it. A glaciers weight and gradual movement can drastically reshape the land. Over hundreds of years, the ice totally changes the landscape. The ice erodes the land surface and carries broken rocks and soil far from where they originated. This results in some interesting glacial landforms.

Glacier crashing

Video taken from google video.

How a glacier is formed

Glaciers begin to form when snow remains in the same area in a long time period, where enough snow accumulates to transform into ice. Each year new snow builds up and burys the previous layer. This compression forces the snow to re-crystallize, forming grains similar in size and shape to grains of sugar. The grains grow gradually and the air pockets between get smaller. (Work in progress.)

Some Facts About Glaciers

-10% of the earth's land is covered by Glaciers

-Glaciers store nearly 75% of the world's fresh water

-15,000,000 square kilometers of the earth is Glacierized

-During the last ice age, glaciers covered 32% of the land on the earth.

-If all land ice melted, sea level would rise 70 metres (210 feet) worldwide.

-North America's longest glacier is the Bering Glacier in Alaska, measuring 204 kilometers (126 miles) long.

-Almost 90% of an iceburg is under water. Only about 10% shows.

-In Washington State alone, glaciers provide 1.7 trillion litres (470 billion gallons) of water each summer in meltoff.