85-427: Sedgwick Glacier ( 69°51′S 69°22′W / 69.850°S 69.367°W / -69.850; -69.367 ) is a glacier on the east coast of Alexander Island , Antarctica , 7 nautical miles (13 km) long and 2 nautical miles (3.7 km) wide, which flows east from the foot of Mount Stephenson into George VI Sound immediately north of Mount Huckle . The glacier was first roughly surveyed in 1936 by
170-424: A cirque landform (alternatively known as a corrie or as a cwm ) – a typically armchair-shaped geological feature (such as a depression between mountains enclosed by arêtes ) – which collects and compresses through gravity the snow that falls into it. This snow accumulates and the weight of the snow falling above compacts it, forming névé (granular snow). Further crushing of the individual snowflakes and squeezing
255-547: A desert climate often face physical water scarcity. Central Asia , West Asia , and North Africa are examples of arid areas. Economic water scarcity results from a lack of investment in infrastructure or technology to draw water from rivers, aquifers , or other water sources. It also results from weak human capacity to meet water demand. Many people in Sub-Saharan Africa are living with economic water scarcity. An important concern for hydrological ecosystems
340-529: A collection of 17 interlinked global goals designed to be a "blueprint to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all". Targets on fresh water conservation are included in SDG 6 (Clean water and sanitation) and SDG 15 (Life on land). For example, Target 6.4 is formulated as "By 2030, substantially increase water-use efficiency across all sectors and ensure sustainable withdrawals and supply of freshwater to address water scarcity and substantially reduce
425-402: A drinking water supply it remains vital to protect due to its ability to carry contaminants and pollutants from the land into lakes and rivers, which constitute a significant percentage of other people's freshwater supply. It is almost ubiquitous underground, residing in the spaces between particles of rock and soil or within crevices and cracks in rock, typically within 100 m (330 ft) of
510-522: A glacier is usually assessed by determining the glacier mass balance or observing terminus behavior. Healthy glaciers have large accumulation zones, more than 60% of their area is snow-covered at the end of the melt season, and they have a terminus with a vigorous flow. Following the Little Ice Age 's end around 1850, glaciers around the Earth have retreated substantially . A slight cooling led to
595-601: A glacier may flow into a body of water, it forms only on land and is distinct from the much thinner sea ice and lake ice that form on the surface of bodies of water. On Earth, 99% of glacial ice is contained within vast ice sheets (also known as "continental glaciers") in the polar regions , but glaciers may be found in mountain ranges on every continent other than the Australian mainland, including Oceania's high-latitude oceanic island countries such as New Zealand . Between latitudes 35°N and 35°S, glaciers occur only in
680-411: A glacier via moulins . Streams within or beneath a glacier flow in englacial or sub-glacial tunnels. These tunnels sometimes reemerge at the glacier's surface. Most of the important processes controlling glacial motion occur in the ice-bed contact—even though it is only a few meters thick. The bed's temperature, roughness and softness define basal shear stress, which in turn defines whether movement of
765-408: A kilometer per year. Eventually, the ice will be surging fast enough that it begins to thin, as accumulation cannot keep up with the transport. This thinning will increase the conductive heat loss, slowing the glacier and causing freezing. This freezing will slow the glacier further, often until it is stationary, whence the cycle can begin again. The flow of water under the glacial surface can have
850-404: A large effect on the motion of the glacier itself. Subglacial lakes contain significant amounts of water, which can move fast: cubic kilometers can be transported between lakes over the course of a couple of years. This motion is thought to occur in two main modes: pipe flow involves liquid water moving through pipe-like conduits, like a sub-glacial river; sheet flow involves motion of water in
935-428: A larger salt content. Freshwater habitats can be classified by different factors, including temperature, light penetration, nutrients, and vegetation. There are three basic types of freshwater ecosystems: Lentic (slow moving water, including pools , ponds , and lakes ), lotic (faster moving water, for example streams and rivers ) and wetlands (areas where the soil is saturated or inundated for at least part of
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#17327918222331020-460: A lower heat conductance, meaning that the basal temperature is also likely to be higher. Bed temperature tends to vary in a cyclic fashion. A cool bed has a high strength, reducing the speed of the glacier. This increases the rate of accumulation, since newly fallen snow is not transported away. Consequently, the glacier thickens, with three consequences: firstly, the bed is better insulated, allowing greater retention of geothermal heat. Secondly,
1105-519: A single factor. Groundwater showed greater resilience to climate change than expected, and areas with an increasing threshold between 0.34 and 0.39 aridity index exhibited significant sensitivity to climate change. Land-use could affect infiltration and runoff processes. The years of most recharge coincided with the most precipitation anomalies, such as during El Niño and La Niña events. Three precipitation-recharge sensitivities were distinguished: in super arid areas with more than 0.67 aridity index, there
1190-488: A thin layer. A switch between the two flow conditions may be associated with surging behavior. Indeed, the loss of sub-glacial water supply has been linked with the shut-down of ice movement in the Kamb ice stream. The subglacial motion of water is expressed in the surface topography of ice sheets, which slump down into vacated subglacial lakes. The speed of glacial displacement is partly determined by friction . Friction makes
1275-410: A tremendous impact as the iceberg strikes the water. Tidewater glaciers undergo centuries-long cycles of advance and retreat that are much less affected by climate change than other glaciers. Thermally, a temperate glacier is at a melting point throughout the year, from its surface to its base. The ice of a polar glacier is always below the freezing threshold from the surface to its base, although
1360-661: Is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Glacier A glacier ( US : / ˈ ɡ l eɪ ʃ ər / ; UK : / ˈ ɡ l æ s i ər , ˈ ɡ l eɪ s i ər / ) is a persistent body of dense ice that is constantly moving downhill under its own weight. A glacier forms where the accumulation of snow exceeds its ablation over many years, often centuries . It acquires distinguishing features, such as crevasses and seracs , as it slowly flows and deforms under stresses induced by its weight. As it moves, it abrades rock and debris from its substrate to create landforms such as cirques , moraines , or fjords . Although
1445-456: Is above or at freezing at the interface and is able to slide at this contact. This contrast is thought to a large extent to govern the ability of a glacier to effectively erode its bed , as sliding ice promotes plucking at rock from the surface below. Glaciers which are partly cold-based and partly warm-based are known as polythermal . Glaciers form where the accumulation of snow and ice exceeds ablation . A glacier usually originates from
1530-407: Is affected by factors such as slope, ice thickness, snowfall, longitudinal confinement, basal temperature, meltwater production, and bed hardness. A few glaciers have periods of very rapid advancement called surges . These glaciers exhibit normal movement until suddenly they accelerate, then return to their previous movement state. These surges may be caused by the failure of the underlying bedrock,
1615-411: Is because these peaks are located near or in the hyperarid Atacama Desert . Glaciers erode terrain through two principal processes: plucking and abrasion . As glaciers flow over bedrock, they soften and lift blocks of rock into the ice. This process, called plucking, is caused by subglacial water that penetrates fractures in the bedrock and subsequently freezes and expands. This expansion causes
1700-406: Is by basal sliding, where meltwater forms between the ice and the bed itself. Whether a bed is hard or soft depends on the porosity and pore pressure; higher porosity decreases the sediment strength (thus increases the shear stress τ B ). Porosity may vary through a range of methods. Bed softness may vary in space or time, and changes dramatically from glacier to glacier. An important factor
1785-434: Is called glaciology . Glaciers are important components of the global cryosphere . Glaciers are categorized by their morphology, thermal characteristics, and behavior. Alpine glaciers form on the crests and slopes of mountains. A glacier that fills a valley is called a valley glacier , or alternatively, an alpine glacier or mountain glacier . A large body of glacial ice astride a mountain, mountain range, or volcano
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#17327918222331870-416: Is called rock flour and is made up of rock grains between 0.002 and 0.00625 mm in size. Abrasion leads to steeper valley walls and mountain slopes in alpine settings, which can cause avalanches and rock slides, which add even more material to the glacier. Glacial abrasion is commonly characterized by glacial striations . Glaciers produce these when they contain large boulders that carve long scratches in
1955-449: Is consumed through human activities than is naturally restored, this may result in reduced fresh water availability (or water scarcity ) from surface and underground sources and can cause serious damage to surrounding and associated environments. Water pollution also reduces the availability of fresh water. Where available water resources are scarce, humans have developed technologies like desalination and wastewater recycling to stretch
2040-416: Is critical to the survival of all living organisms . Many organisms can thrive on salt water, but the great majority of vascular plants and most insects , amphibians , reptiles , mammals and birds need fresh water to survive. Fresh water is the water resource that is of the most and immediate use to humans. Fresh water is not always potable water , that is, water safe to drink by humans . Much of
2125-452: Is extracted for human consumption. Agriculture uses roughly two thirds of all fresh water extracted from the environment. Fresh water is a renewable and variable, but finite natural resource . Fresh water is replenished through the process of the natural water cycle , in which water from seas, lakes, forests, land, rivers and reservoirs evaporates, forms clouds , and returns inland as precipitation. Locally, however, if more fresh water
2210-647: Is higher, and the mountains above 5,000 m (16,400 ft) usually have permanent snow. Even at high latitudes, glacier formation is not inevitable. Areas of the Arctic , such as Banks Island , and the McMurdo Dry Valleys in Antarctica are considered polar deserts where glaciers cannot form because they receive little snowfall despite the bitter cold. Cold air, unlike warm air, is unable to transport much water vapor. Even during glacial periods of
2295-483: Is particularly crucial in Africa, where water resources are often scarce and climate change poses significant challenges. Saline water in oceans , seas and saline groundwater make up about 97% of all the water on Earth . Only 2.5–2.75% is fresh water, including 1.75–2% frozen in glaciers , ice and snow, 0.5–0.75% as fresh groundwater. The water table is the level below which all spaces are filled with water, while
2380-826: Is securing minimum streamflow , especially preserving and restoring instream water allocations . Fresh water is an important natural resource necessary for the survival of all ecosystems . Water pollution (or aquatic pollution) is the contamination of water bodies , with a negative impact on their uses. It is usually a result of human activities. Water bodies include lakes , rivers , oceans , aquifers , reservoirs and groundwater . Water pollution results when contaminants mix with these water bodies. Contaminants can come from one of four main sources. These are sewage discharges, industrial activities, agricultural activities, and urban runoff including stormwater . Water pollution may affect either surface water or groundwater . This form of pollution can lead to many problems. One
2465-897: Is termed an ice cap or ice field . Ice caps have an area less than 50,000 km (19,000 sq mi) by definition. Glacial bodies larger than 50,000 km (19,000 sq mi) are called ice sheets or continental glaciers . Several kilometers deep, they obscure the underlying topography. Only nunataks protrude from their surfaces. The only extant ice sheets are the two that cover most of Antarctica and Greenland. They contain vast quantities of freshwater, enough that if both melted, global sea levels would rise by over 70 m (230 ft). Portions of an ice sheet or cap that extend into water are called ice shelves ; they tend to be thin with limited slopes and reduced velocities. Narrow, fast-moving sections of an ice sheet are called ice streams . In Antarctica, many ice streams drain into large ice shelves . Some drain directly into
2550-420: Is the degradation of aquatic ecosystems . Another is spreading water-borne diseases when people use polluted water for drinking or irrigation . Water pollution also reduces the ecosystem services such as drinking water provided by the water resource . Uses of water include agricultural , industrial , household , recreational and environmental activities. The Sustainable Development Goals are
2635-413: Is the region where there is a net loss in glacier mass. The upper part of a glacier, where accumulation exceeds ablation, is called the accumulation zone . The equilibrium line separates the ablation zone and the accumulation zone; it is the contour where the amount of new snow gained by accumulation is equal to the amount of ice lost through ablation. In general, the accumulation zone accounts for 60–70% of
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2720-402: Is the underlying geology; glacial speeds tend to differ more when they change bedrock than when the gradient changes. Further, bed roughness can also act to slow glacial motion. The roughness of the bed is a measure of how many boulders and obstacles protrude into the overlying ice. Ice flows around these obstacles by melting under the high pressure on their stoss side ; the resultant meltwater
2805-552: Is then forced into the cavity arising in their lee side , where it re-freezes. As well as affecting the sediment stress, fluid pressure (p w ) can affect the friction between the glacier and the bed. High fluid pressure provides a buoyancy force upwards on the glacier, reducing the friction at its base. The fluid pressure is compared to the ice overburden pressure, p i , given by ρgh. Under fast-flowing ice streams, these two pressures will be approximately equal, with an effective pressure (p i – p w ) of 30 kPa; i.e. all of
2890-537: The Amazon River . The atmosphere contains 0.04% water. In areas with no fresh water on the ground surface, fresh water derived from precipitation may, because of its lower density, overlie saline ground water in lenses or layers. Most of the world's fresh water is frozen in ice sheets . Many areas have very little fresh water, such as deserts . Water is a critical issue for the survival of all living organisms. Some can use salt water but many organisms including
2975-993: The Andes , the Himalayas , the Rocky Mountains , the Caucasus , Scandinavian Mountains , and the Alps . Snezhnika glacier in Pirin Mountain, Bulgaria with a latitude of 41°46′09″ N is the southernmost glacial mass in Europe. Mainland Australia currently contains no glaciers, although a small glacier on Mount Kosciuszko was present in the last glacial period . In New Guinea, small, rapidly diminishing, glaciers are located on Puncak Jaya . Africa has glaciers on Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, on Mount Kenya , and in
3060-670: The British Graham Land Expedition under Rymill. Resurveyed in 1948 by the Falkland Islands Dependencies Survey and named by them for Adam Sedgwick , English geologist and professor of geology at Cambridge University , 1818–73. [REDACTED] This article incorporates public domain material from "Sedgwick Glacier" . Geographic Names Information System . United States Geological Survey . [REDACTED] This Alexander Island location article
3145-644: The Faroe and Crozet Islands were completely glaciated. The permanent snow cover necessary for glacier formation is affected by factors such as the degree of slope on the land, amount of snowfall and the winds. Glaciers can be found in all latitudes except from 20° to 27° north and south of the equator where the presence of the descending limb of the Hadley circulation lowers precipitation so much that with high insolation snow lines reach above 6,500 m (21,330 ft). Between 19˚N and 19˚S, however, precipitation
3230-663: The Green Sahara periods) and are not appreciably replenished under current climatic conditions - at least compared to drawdown, these aquifers form essentially non-renewable resources comparable to peat or lignite, which are also continuously formed in the current era but orders of magnitude slower than they are mined. Fresh water can be defined as water with less than 500 parts per million (ppm) of dissolved salts . Other sources give higher upper salinity limits for fresh water, e.g. 1,000 ppm or 3,000 ppm. Fresh water habitats are classified as either lentic systems , which are
3315-760: The Himalayas , Andes , and a few high mountains in East Africa, Mexico, New Guinea and on Zard-Kuh in Iran. With more than 7,000 known glaciers, Pakistan has more glacial ice than any other country outside the polar regions. Glaciers cover about 10% of Earth's land surface. Continental glaciers cover nearly 13 million km (5 million sq mi) or about 98% of Antarctica 's 13.2 million km (5.1 million sq mi), with an average thickness of ice 2,100 m (7,000 ft). Greenland and Patagonia also have huge expanses of continental glaciers. The volume of glaciers, not including
3400-562: The Quaternary , Manchuria , lowland Siberia , and central and northern Alaska , though extraordinarily cold, had such light snowfall that glaciers could not form. In addition to the dry, unglaciated polar regions, some mountains and volcanoes in Bolivia, Chile and Argentina are high (4,500 to 6,900 m or 14,800 to 22,600 ft) and cold, but the relative lack of precipitation prevents snow from accumulating into glaciers. This
3485-535: The Rwenzori Mountains . Oceanic islands with glaciers include Iceland, several of the islands off the coast of Norway including Svalbard and Jan Mayen to the far north, New Zealand and the subantarctic islands of Marion , Heard , Grande Terre (Kerguelen) and Bouvet . During glacial periods of the Quaternary, Taiwan , Hawaii on Mauna Kea and Tenerife also had large alpine glaciers, while
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3570-514: The earth 's fresh water (on the surface and groundwater) is to a substantial degree unsuitable for human consumption without treatment . Fresh water can easily become polluted by human activities or due to naturally occurring processes, such as erosion. Fresh water makes up less than 3% of the world's water resources, and just 1% of that is readily available. About 70% of the world's freshwater reserves are frozen in Antarctica . Just 3% of it
3655-448: The 1990s and 2000s. In a study using data from January 1993 through October 2005, more events were detected every year since 2002, and twice as many events were recorded in 2005 as there were in any other year. Ogives or Forbes bands are alternating wave crests and valleys that appear as dark and light bands of ice on glacier surfaces. They are linked to seasonal motion of glaciers; the width of one dark and one light band generally equals
3740-412: The advance of many alpine glaciers between 1950 and 1985, but since 1985 glacier retreat and mass loss has become larger and increasingly ubiquitous. Glaciers move downhill by the force of gravity and the internal deformation of ice. At the molecular level, ice consists of stacked layers of molecules with relatively weak bonds between layers. When the amount of strain (deformation) is proportional to
3825-520: The air from the snow turns it into "glacial ice". This glacial ice will fill the cirque until it "overflows" through a geological weakness or vacancy, such as a gap between two mountains. When the mass of snow and ice reaches sufficient thickness, it begins to move by a combination of surface slope, gravity, and pressure. On steeper slopes, this can occur with as little as 15 m (49 ft) of snow-ice. In temperate glaciers, snow repeatedly freezes and thaws, changing into granular ice called firn . Under
3910-430: The amount of melting at surface of the glacier, the faster the ice will flow. Basal sliding is dominant in temperate or warm-based glaciers. The presence of basal meltwater depends on both bed temperature and other factors. For instance, the melting point of water decreases under pressure, meaning that water melts at a lower temperature under thicker glaciers. This acts as a "double whammy", because thicker glaciers have
3995-713: The annual movement of the glacier. Ogives are formed when ice from an icefall is severely broken up, increasing ablation surface area during summer. This creates a swale and space for snow accumulation in the winter, which in turn creates a ridge. Sometimes ogives consist only of undulations or color bands and are described as wave ogives or band ogives. Glaciers are present on every continent and in approximately fifty countries, excluding those (Australia, South Africa) that have glaciers only on distant subantarctic island territories. Extensive glaciers are found in Antarctica, Argentina, Chile, Canada, Pakistan, Alaska, Greenland and Iceland. Mountain glaciers are widespread, especially in
4080-494: The area above this level, where spaces in the rock and soil contain both air and water, is known as the unsaturated zone. The water in this unsaturated zone is referred to as soil moisture. Below the water table, the entire region is known as the saturated zone, and the water in this zone is called groundwater. Groundwater plays a crucial role as the primary source of water for various purposes including drinking, washing, farming, and manufacturing, and even when not directly used as
4165-421: The available supply further. However, given the high cost (both capital and running costs) and - especially for desalination - energy requirements, those remain mostly niche applications. A non-sustainable alternative is using so-called " fossil water " from underground aquifers . As some of those aquifers formed hundreds of thousands or even millions of years ago when local climates were wetter (e.g. from one of
4250-432: The bedrock has frequent fractures on the surface, glacial erosion rates tend to increase as plucking is the main erosive force on the surface; when the bedrock has wide gaps between sporadic fractures, however, abrasion tends to be the dominant erosive form and glacial erosion rates become slow. Glaciers in lower latitudes tend to be much more erosive than glaciers in higher latitudes, because they have more meltwater reaching
4335-445: The bedrock. By mapping the direction of the striations, researchers can determine the direction of the glacier's movement. Similar to striations are chatter marks , lines of crescent-shape depressions in the rock underlying a glacier. They are formed by abrasion when boulders in the glacier are repeatedly caught and released as they are dragged along the bedrock. The rate of glacier erosion varies. Six factors control erosion rate: When
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#17327918222334420-571: The created ice's density. The word glacier is a loanword from French and goes back, via Franco-Provençal , to the Vulgar Latin glaciārium , derived from the Late Latin glacia , and ultimately Latin glaciēs , meaning "ice". The processes and features caused by or related to glaciers are referred to as glacial. The process of glacier establishment, growth and flow is called glaciation . The corresponding area of study
4505-467: The deep profile of fjords , which can reach a kilometer in depth as ice is topographically steered into them. The extension of fjords inland increases the rate of ice sheet thinning since they are the principal conduits for draining ice sheets. It also makes the ice sheets more sensitive to changes in climate and the ocean. Although evidence in favor of glacial flow was known by the early 19th century, other theories of glacial motion were advanced, such as
4590-483: The deformation to become a plastic flow rather than elastic. Then, the glacier will begin to deform under its own weight and flow across the landscape. According to the Glen–Nye flow law , the relationship between stress and strain, and thus the rate of internal flow, can be modeled as follows: where: The lowest velocities are near the base of the glacier and along valley sides where friction acts against flow, causing
4675-418: The essentially correct explanation in the 1840s, although it was several decades before it was fully accepted. The top 50 m (160 ft) of a glacier are rigid because they are under low pressure . This upper section is known as the fracture zone and moves mostly as a single unit over the plastic-flowing lower section. When a glacier moves through irregular terrain, cracks called crevasses develop in
4760-475: The fracture zone. Crevasses form because of differences in glacier velocity. If two rigid sections of a glacier move at different speeds or directions, shear forces cause them to break apart, opening a crevasse. Crevasses are seldom more than 46 m (150 ft) deep but, in some cases, can be at least 300 m (1,000 ft) deep. Beneath this point, the plasticity of the ice prevents the formation of cracks. Intersecting crevasses can create isolated peaks in
4845-535: The freshwater flow to be measurably contaminated both by insoluble solids but also by the soluble components of those soils. Significant quantities of iron may be transported in this way including the well-documented transfer of iron-rich rainfall falling in Brazil derived from sand-storms in the Sahara in north Africa . In Africa, it was revealed that groundwater controls are complex and do not correspond directly to
4930-1030: The glacial base and facilitate sediment production and transport under the same moving speed and amount of ice. Material that becomes incorporated in a glacier is typically carried as far as the zone of ablation before being deposited. Glacial deposits are of two distinct types: Fresh water Fresh water or freshwater is any naturally occurring liquid or frozen water containing low concentrations of dissolved salts and other total dissolved solids . The term excludes seawater and brackish water , but it does include non-salty mineral-rich waters , such as chalybeate springs. Fresh water may encompass frozen and meltwater in ice sheets , ice caps , glaciers , snowfields and icebergs , natural precipitations such as rainfall , snowfall , hail / sleet and graupel , and surface runoffs that form inland bodies of water such as wetlands , ponds , lakes , rivers , streams , as well as groundwater contained in aquifers , subterranean rivers and lakes . Water
5015-453: The glacier to melt, creating a water source that is especially important for plants, animals and human uses when other sources may be scant. However, within high-altitude and Antarctic environments, the seasonal temperature difference is often not sufficient to release meltwater. Since glacial mass is affected by long-term climatic changes, e.g., precipitation , mean temperature , and cloud cover , glacial mass changes are considered among
5100-428: The glacier will be accommodated by motion in the sediments, or if it'll be able to slide. A soft bed, with high porosity and low pore fluid pressure, allows the glacier to move by sediment sliding: the base of the glacier may even remain frozen to the bed, where the underlying sediment slips underneath it like a tube of toothpaste. A hard bed cannot deform in this way; therefore the only way for hard-based glaciers to move
5185-510: The glacier's surface area, more if the glacier calves icebergs. Ice in the accumulation zone is deep enough to exert a downward force that erodes underlying rock. After a glacier melts, it often leaves behind a bowl- or amphitheater-shaped depression that ranges in size from large basins like the Great Lakes to smaller mountain depressions known as cirques . The accumulation zone can be subdivided based on its melt conditions. The health of
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#17327918222335270-547: The great majority of higher plants and most mammals must have access to fresh water to live. Some terrestrial mammals, especially desert rodents , appear to survive without drinking, but they do generate water through the metabolism of cereal seeds, and they also have mechanisms to conserve water to the maximum degree. Freshwater ecosystems are a subset of Earth's aquatic ecosystems . They include lakes , ponds , rivers , streams , springs , bogs , and wetlands . They can be contrasted with marine ecosystems , which have
5355-619: The ice at the bottom of the glacier move more slowly than ice at the top. In alpine glaciers, friction is also generated at the valley's sidewalls, which slows the edges relative to the center. Mean glacial speed varies greatly but is typically around 1 m (3 ft) per day. There may be no motion in stagnant areas; for example, in parts of Alaska, trees can establish themselves on surface sediment deposits. In other cases, glaciers can move as fast as 20–30 m (70–100 ft) per day, such as in Greenland's Jakobshavn Isbræ . Glacial speed
5440-420: The ice sheets of Antarctica and Greenland, has been estimated at 170,000 km . Glacial ice is the largest reservoir of fresh water on Earth, holding with ice sheets about 69 percent of the world's freshwater. Many glaciers from temperate , alpine and seasonal polar climates store water as ice during the colder seasons and release it later in the form of meltwater as warmer summer temperatures cause
5525-556: The ice to act as a lever that loosens the rock by lifting it. Thus, sediments of all sizes become part of the glacier's load. If a retreating glacier gains enough debris, it may become a rock glacier , like the Timpanogos Glacier in Utah. Abrasion occurs when the ice and its load of rock fragments slide over bedrock and function as sandpaper, smoothing and polishing the bedrock below. The pulverized rock this process produces
5610-488: The ice, called seracs . Crevasses can form in several different ways. Transverse crevasses are transverse to flow and form where steeper slopes cause a glacier to accelerate. Longitudinal crevasses form semi-parallel to flow where a glacier expands laterally. Marginal crevasses form near the edge of the glacier, caused by the reduction in speed caused by friction of the valley walls. Marginal crevasses are largely transverse to flow. Moving glacier ice can sometimes separate from
5695-411: The idea that meltwater, refreezing inside glaciers, caused the glacier to dilate and extend its length. As it became clear that glaciers behaved to some degree as if the ice were a viscous fluid, it was argued that "regelation", or the melting and refreezing of ice at a temperature lowered by the pressure on the ice inside the glacier, was what allowed the ice to deform and flow. James Forbes came up with
5780-418: The increased pressure can facilitate melting. Most importantly, τ D is increased. These factors will combine to accelerate the glacier. As friction increases with the square of velocity, faster motion will greatly increase frictional heating, with ensuing melting – which causes a positive feedback, increasing ice speed to a faster flow rate still: west Antarctic glaciers are known to reach velocities of up to
5865-423: The infrared OH stretching mode of the water molecule. (Liquid water appears blue for the same reason. The blue of glacier ice is sometimes misattributed to Rayleigh scattering of bubbles in the ice.) A glacier originates at a location called its glacier head and terminates at its glacier foot, snout, or terminus . Glaciers are broken into zones based on surface snowpack and melt conditions. The ablation zone
5950-679: The most deformation. Velocity increases inward toward the center line and upward, as the amount of deformation decreases. The highest flow velocities are found at the surface, representing the sum of the velocities of all the layers below. Because ice can flow faster where it is thicker, the rate of glacier-induced erosion is directly proportional to the thickness of overlying ice. Consequently, pre-glacial low hollows will be deepened and pre-existing topography will be amplified by glacial action, while nunataks , which protrude above ice sheets, barely erode at all – erosion has been estimated as 5 m per 1.2 million years. This explains, for example,
6035-445: The most sensitive indicators of climate change and are a major source of variations in sea level . A large piece of compressed ice, or a glacier, appears blue , as large quantities of water appear blue , because water molecules absorb other colors more efficiently than blue. The other reason for the blue color of glaciers is the lack of air bubbles. Air bubbles, which give a white color to ice, are squeezed out by pressure increasing
6120-413: The others as well. Water scarcity (closely related to water stress or water crisis) is the lack of fresh water resources to meet the standard water demand. There are two types of water scarcity. One is physical. The other is economic water scarcity . Physical water scarcity is where there is not enough water to meet all demands. This includes water needed for ecosystems to function. Regions with
6205-725: The pooling of meltwater at the base of the glacier — perhaps delivered from a supraglacial lake — or the simple accumulation of mass beyond a critical "tipping point". Temporary rates up to 90 m (300 ft) per day have occurred when increased temperature or overlying pressure caused bottom ice to melt and water to accumulate beneath a glacier. In glaciated areas where the glacier moves faster than one km per year, glacial earthquakes occur. These are large scale earthquakes that have seismic magnitudes as high as 6.1. The number of glacial earthquakes in Greenland peaks every year in July, August, and September and increased rapidly in
6290-410: The pressure of the layers of ice and snow above it, this granular ice fuses into denser firn. Over a period of years, layers of firn undergo further compaction and become glacial ice. Glacier ice is slightly more dense than ice formed from frozen water because glacier ice contains fewer trapped air bubbles. Glacial ice has a distinctive blue tint because it absorbs some red light due to an overtone of
6375-421: The sea if windy conditions have lifted drops of seawater into the rain-bearing clouds. This can give rise to elevated concentrations of sodium , chloride , magnesium and sulfate as well as many other compounds in smaller concentrations. In desert areas, or areas with impoverished or dusty soils, rain-bearing winds can pick up sand and dust and this can be deposited elsewhere in precipitation and causing
6460-567: The sea, often with an ice tongue , like Mertz Glacier . Tidewater glaciers are glaciers that terminate in the sea, including most glaciers flowing from Greenland, Antarctica, Baffin , Devon , and Ellesmere Islands in Canada, Southeast Alaska , and the Northern and Southern Patagonian Ice Fields . As the ice reaches the sea, pieces break off or calve, forming icebergs . Most tidewater glaciers calve above sea level, which often results in
6545-409: The stagnant ice above, forming a bergschrund . Bergschrunds resemble crevasses but are singular features at a glacier's margins. Crevasses make travel over glaciers hazardous, especially when they are hidden by fragile snow bridges . Below the equilibrium line, glacial meltwater is concentrated in stream channels. Meltwater can pool in proglacial lakes on top of a glacier or descend into the depths of
6630-420: The stillwaters including ponds , lakes, swamps and mires ; lotic which are running-water systems; or groundwaters which flow in rocks and aquifers . There is, in addition, a zone which bridges between groundwater and lotic systems, which is the hyporheic zone , which underlies many larger rivers and can contain substantially more water than is seen in the open channel. It may also be in direct contact with
6715-423: The stress being applied, ice will act as an elastic solid. Ice needs to be at least 30 m (98 ft) thick to even start flowing, but once its thickness exceeds about 50 m (160 ft) (160 ft), stress on the layer above will exceeds the inter-layer binding strength, and then it'll move faster than the layer below. This means that small amounts of stress can result in a large amount of strain, causing
6800-438: The surface snowpack may experience seasonal melting. A subpolar glacier includes both temperate and polar ice, depending on the depth beneath the surface and position along the length of the glacier. In a similar way, the thermal regime of a glacier is often described by its basal temperature. A cold-based glacier is below freezing at the ice-ground interface and is thus frozen to the underlying substrate. A warm-based glacier
6885-666: The surface, and soil moisture, and less than 0.01% of it as surface water in lakes , swamps and rivers . Freshwater lakes contain about 87% of this fresh surface water, including 29% in the African Great Lakes , 22% in Lake Baikal in Russia, 21% in the North American Great Lakes , and 14% in other lakes. Swamps have most of the balance with only a small amount in rivers, most notably
6970-469: The time). Freshwater ecosystems contain 41% of the world's known fish species. The increase in the world population and the increase in per capita water use puts increasing strains on the finite resources availability of clean fresh water. The response by freshwater ecosystems to a changing climate can be described in terms of three interrelated components: water quality, water quantity or volume, and water timing. A change in one often leads to shifts in
7055-657: The underlying underground water. The original source of almost all fresh water is precipitation from the atmosphere , in the form of mist , rain and snow . Fresh water falling as mist, rain or snow contains materials dissolved from the atmosphere and material from the sea and land over which the rain bearing clouds have traveled. The precipitation leads eventually to the formation of water bodies that humans can use as sources of freshwater: ponds , lakes , rainfall , rivers , streams , and groundwater contained in underground aquifers . In coastal areas fresh water may contain significant concentrations of salts derived from
7140-417: The weight of the ice is supported by the underlying water, and the glacier is afloat. Glaciers may also move by basal sliding , where the base of the glacier is lubricated by the presence of liquid water, reducing basal shear stress and allowing the glacier to slide over the terrain on which it sits. Meltwater may be produced by pressure-induced melting, friction or geothermal heat . The more variable
7225-461: Was constant recharge with little variation with precipitation; in most sites (arid, semi-arid, humid), annual recharge increased as annual precipitation remained above a certain threshold; and in complex areas down to 0.1 aridity index (focused recharge), there was very inconsistent recharge (low precipitation but high recharge). Understanding these relationships can lead to the development of sustainable strategies for water collection. This understanding
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