Glacier

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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.
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News tagged with glaciers

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Glacier melt adds ancient edibles to marine buffet

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

16 hours ago | 3.9 / 5 (10) | 4

Glaciers along the Gulf of Alaska are enriching stream and near shore marine ecosystems from a surprising source - ancient carbon contained in glacial runoff, researchers from four universities and the U.S. ...

Hypoxia increases as climate warms

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

Dec 15, 2009 | 4.3 / 5 (6) | 2

A new study of Pacific Ocean sediments off the coast of Chile has found that offshore waters experienced systematic oxygen depletion during the rapid warming of the Antarctic following the last "glacial maximum" period 20,000 ...

Greenland glaciers: What lies beneath

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

Dec 15, 2009 | 3.6 / 5 (5) | 1

Scientists who study the melting of Greenland's glaciers are discovering that water flowing beneath the ice plays a much more complex role than they previously imagined.

A unique geography -- and soot and dust -- conspire against Himalayan glaciers

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

Dec 15, 2009 | 4 / 5 (2) | 1

"So many disparate elements, both natural and man-made, converge in the Himalayas," said William Lau, a climatologist from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "There's no other place in the ...

Sunshine speeded 1940s Swiss glacier melt: scientists

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

Dec 14, 2009 | 5 / 5 (4) | 4

A surge in sunshine more than 60 years ago helped Swiss mountain glaciers melt faster than today, even though warmer average temperatures are being recorded now, Swiss researchers said Monday.

New Study Turns Up the Heat on Soot's Role in Himalayan Warming (w/ Video)

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

Dec 14, 2009 | 5 / 5 (2) | 0

(PhysOrg.com) -- Soot from fire in an unventilated fireplace wafts into a home and settles on the surfaces of floors and furniture. But with a quick fix to the chimney flue and some dusting, it bears no impact ...

The Meandering Channels of Mars

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

Dec 10, 2009 | 4.2 / 5 (6) | 5

Sinuous channels on the Martian surface may be evidence of relatively recent rainfall. Researchers plan to test this hypothesis by studying sinuous streams on Earth.

Antarctica served as climatic refuge in Earth's greatest extinction event

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

Dec 02, 2009 | 4.6 / 5 (10) | 0

A new fossil species suggests that some land animals may have survived the end-Permian extinction by living in cooler climates in Antarctica. Researchers have identified a distant relative of mammals that apparently survived ...