What are glaciers

The glaciers They are great masses formed mainly by Snow, ice and rocks. After a long process of thousands of years, the snow is compact, resulting in a thick layer of crystallized ice. This Glacier formation process receive the name of Glaciationhence it relates directly to the old ice age.

The formation of a glacier can take more than 100 years. The beginning of this process occurs when the snow falls continuously throughout the year. A decisive factor for the snow to remain is that the temperatures are soft. In this way, at the beginning of the cold season, a new layer will be generated on the one already formed in the previous year that is compacted.

Compression, thanks to the compaction of the new snowflakes that fall on the previous layers, creates a process of Ice crystallization When the air is released between the different layers. In this way the snow increases its density, resulting in an ice slip, which flows faster and faster. Therefore, it is very important that the glacier finds the balance between the snow it receives and the one that evaporates, which requires many years.

These are the main parts of a glacier:

• Accumulation area: The highest glacier area, where the snow is gradually accumulated.
• Ablation area: It is the glacier area where fusion and evaporation processes occur. Thanks to these processes, the glacier finds the balance between the increase and the loss of mass.
• Cracks: These are found in the area where the glacier flows faster.
• Glaciers: The sediment bands that create dark betas on the surface of the glacier are called glacial brunettes. They are usually found at the top of the glacier.
• Terminal: It is the lower end of the glacier. This area is where accumulated snow melts throughout the process.

The main types of glaciers What can we find are:

• Alpine glaciers.
• Valley glaciers.
• Casquet glaciers.
• Plateau glaciers.

At present, almost 10% of the planet’s surface is covered by glaciers, accumulated mostly in the Polar casques. These accumulate almost 75% of the fresh water of the earth, hence its great importance and the serious consequences produced by their thaw.

You can also find glaciers in the large mountain chains of many areas of the planet such as in the rocky mountains, in the Himalayas, in New Guinea and even east Africa. He Lambert glacierwhich is located in Antarctica, is the largest in the world. It has a depth of 2,500 meters and a total extension of 100 km wide by 400 km long.

Here we leave a list with others of the most important glaciers on the planet:

• Olden’s glacier, in Norway.
• Briksda glacier, L in Norway.
• Gray glacier in Chile.
• Glacier El Morado, in Chile.
• Petermamn glacier, in Greenland.
• Perito Moreno glacier in Argentina.
• Martial glacier, in Argentina.
• Black glacier, in Iceland.

Icebergs are a large floating ice mass that, due to different factors, Gesting a glacier. A part of this is always in sight, above the surface of the water, while more than half of its structure is submerged. Hence, it represents a danger to maritime navigation, since it is very difficult to calculate with the naked eye the magnitude of its real proportions. Due to global warmingthere are many icebergs that have formed over the last years.

One of the main factors of its displacement is due to the density of the salt water of the ocean, which allows the iceberg to remain afloat. With the arrival in regions where the marine current reaches higher temperatures, the icebergs melt to add their volume of fresh water At sea level. Another of the great Dangers of the thaw It is the change that produces in coastal areas, where the water level rises more every year.

Therefore, as a conclusion, we can say that the Difference between glacier and iceberg It is that the first is the great mass of fixed ice and the second is a detached part of this and that floats in the water to drift.

As an important news about the thaw, we want to highlight what happened on June 13, 2019 in Greenland. On that same day Groenland lost more than 40% of its icy territoryin the form of glaciers, due to melting or thawing. The scientists estimated that it was lost 2 ice gigatons or 2,000 million tons of ice.

The main consequence has been a great increase in temperatures in recent times, a problem that we have produced, humans. It must be remembered that although there is a natural climate change, humans have been producing an incredible acceleration of this process for a long time, which we know as Artificial or anthropic climate change. Thus, due to the great pollution that we produce at all levels, we increase problems such as the greenhouse effect and, from there, the increase in temperatures or increase in global warming, which leads to climate change becoming much faster and, to begin with, the glaciers get rid of and significantly increase the level of the oceans, leaving less living room surface, among other serious problems for all species.

In the image below, a photograph taken by scientist Steffen Malkaer Olsen, you can see part of the result of this serious event in Greenland.

Finally, we invite you to know a little more about this topic with these articles of ecology see about the data on the thaw of the poles and the consequences of the thaw of the poles.

If you want to read more articles similar to What are glacierswe recommend that you enter our category of other environment.