News tagged with glaciers
Study shows global glaciers, ice caps, shedding billions of tons of mass annually
Earth's glaciers and ice caps outside of the regions of Greenland and Antarctica are shedding roughly 150 billion tons of ice annually, according to a new study led by the University of Colorado Boulder.
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Feb 08, 2012 |
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Land-cover changes do not impact glacier loss
A new study shows that land-cover changes, in particular deforestation, in the vicinity of glaciers do not have an impact on glacier loss. However, the study, in which Innsbruck climate researcher were directly involved, ...
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Feb 05, 2012 |
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Image: Crack discovered in Pine Island Glacier
(PhysOrg.com) -- In mid-October 2011, NASA scientists working in Antarctica discovered a massive crack across the Pine Island Glacier, a major ice stream that drains the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. Extending ...
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Feb 01, 2012 |
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Greenland's pronounced glacier retreat not irreversible
In recent decades, the combined forces of climate warming and short-term variability have forced the massive glaciers that blanket Greenland into retreat, with some scientists worrying that deglaciation could become irreversible. ...
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Jan 31, 2012 |
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Hearty bacteria help make case for life in the extreme
(PhysOrg.com) -- The bottom of a glacier is not the most hospitable place on Earth, but at least two types of bacteria happily live there, according to researchers.
Jan 19, 2012 |
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New cores from glacier in the Eastern European Alps may yield new climate clues
Researchers are beginning their analysis of what are probably the first successful ice cores drilled to bedrock from a glacier in the eastern European Alps.
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Jan 09, 2012 |
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Fire destroys 1,500 hectares of Patagonia forest
A fire has destroyed or seriously damaged 1,500 hectares (3,700 acres) of vegetation in a Patagonia nature preserve in southern Chile, forcing the evacuation of 400 people, officials said Thursday.
Dec 30, 2011 |
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Glacial tap is open but the water will run dry
Glaciers are retreating at an unexpectedly fast rate according to research done in Peru's Cordillera Blanca by McGill doctoral student Michel Baraer. They are currently shrinking by about one per cent a year, and that percentage ...
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Dec 20, 2011 |
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NASA: Climate change may bring big ecosystem changes
(PhysOrg.com) -- By 2100, global climate change will modify plant communities covering almost half of Earth's land surface and will drive the conversion of nearly 40 percent of land-based ecosystems from one ...
Dec 15, 2011 |
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Ice sheets can expand in a geologic instant, Arctic study shows
(PhysOrg.com) -- A fast-moving glacier on the Greenland Ice Sheet expanded in a geologic instant several millennia ago, growing in response to cooling periods that lasted not much longer than a century, according ...
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Dec 14, 2011 |
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Rapid retreat of Chile glacier captured in images
(AP) -- Researchers in Chile released a series of time-lapse photos Wednesday showing the dramatic retreat of a glacier in Patagonia.
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Dec 08, 2011 |
4.4 / 5 (5) |
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USAID, CU-Boulder partner to study water resources in Asia mountains
A University of Colorado Boulder team is partnering with the United States Agency for International Development to assess snow and glacier contributions to water resources originating in the high mountains ...
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Dec 06, 2011 |
not rated yet |
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Tropical sea temperatures influence melting in Antarctica
Accelerated melting of two fast-moving outlet glaciers that drain Antarctic ice into the Amundsen Sea Embayment is likely the result, in part, of an increase in sea-surface temperatures in the tropical Pacific Ocean, according ...
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Dec 06, 2011 |
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Scientists confirm Himalayan glacial melting
Glaciers in the Himalayas have shrunk by as much as a fifth in just 30 years, scientists have claimed in the first authoritative confirmation of the effects of climate change on the region.
Dec 05, 2011 |
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New reports identify impacts of climate change on world's highest mountains
Findings from the most comprehensive assessment to date on climate change, snow and glacier melt in Asia's mountainous Hindu Kush-Himalayan (HKH) region -- site of Mount Everest and many of the world's tallest peaks -- highlight ...
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Dec 04, 2011 |
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Glacier
A glacier is a large mass of ice moving slowly over some land surface or down a valley, formed over long periods from the accumulation of snow in areas where the amount of snow that falls exceeds the amount that melts. The word glacier comes from French via the Vulgar Latin glacia, and ultimately from Latin glacies meaning ice.
Glacier ice is the largest reservoir of fresh water on Earth, and second only to oceans as the largest reservoir of total water. Glaciers cover vast areas of the polar regions and are found in mountain ranges of every continent except Australia, as well as in New Zealand. In the tropics glaciers are restricted to the highest mountains. The processes and landforms caused by glaciers and related to them are referred to as glacial. The process of glacier growth and establishment is called glaciation. Glaciers are sensitive monitors of climate conditions and are crucial to both world water resources and sea level variation.
For more information about Glacier, read the full article at
Wikipedia.
This text uses material from Wikipedia and is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.
