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News tagged with glaciers

Ice Sheets Can Retreat 'In a Geologic Instant,' Study of Prehistoric Glacier Shows

(PhysOrg.com) -- Modern glaciers, such as those making up the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, are capable of undergoing periods of rapid shrinkage or retreat, according to new findings by paleoclimatologists ...

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created Jun 21, 2009 | popularity 4.5 / 5 (62) | comments 20

Shrinking Bylot Island glaciers tell story of climate change

The U.S. Geological Survey has released the results of a long-term study of key glaciers in western North America, reporting this month that glacial shrinkage is rapid and accelerating and a result of climate ...

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created Aug 31, 2009 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (59) | comments 8

Climate skeptics exploiting scandal: US envoy

The US pointman on climate change on Tuesday accused vested interests of exploiting recent scientific scandals, saying there was an overwhelming case for the world to take action.

Space & Earth / Environment

created Feb 16, 2010 | popularity 2.9 / 5 (47) | comments 242

Blubbery 'researchers' lend fin to climate science

(AP) -- Into the Antarctic enigma, the puzzle of a place with too few researchers chasing too many climate mysteries, slowly waddles the elephant seal.

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created Apr 06, 2009 | popularity 4.6 / 5 (27) | comments 1

Team finds subtropical waters flushing through Greenland fjord

Waters from warmer latitudes -- or subtropical waters -- are reaching Greenland's glaciers, driving melting and likely triggering an acceleration of ice loss, reports a team of researchers led by Fiamma Straneo, ...

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created Feb 14, 2010 | popularity 3.9 / 5 (30) | comments 82 | with audio podcast

Ancient ecosystem thrives millions of years below Antarctic glacier

(PhysOrg.com) -- A reservoir of briny liquid buried deep beneath an Antarctic glacier supports hardy microbes that have lived in isolation for millions of years, researchers report this week in the journal ...

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created Apr 16, 2009 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (24) | comments 12

Global sea level likely to rise as much as 70 feet for future generations

Even if humankind manages to limit global warming to 2 degrees C (3.6 degrees F), as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change recommends, future generations will have to deal with sea levels 12 to 22 meters (40 to 70 ...

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created Mar 19, 2012 | popularity 3.3 / 5 (32) | comments 256 | with audio podcast

Climate scientists say they have solved riddle of rising sea

Massive extraction of groundwater can resolve a puzzle over a rise in sea levels in past decades, scientists in Japan said on Sunday.

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created May 20, 2012 | popularity 4.2 / 5 (25) | comments 32

Greenland rapidly rising as ice melt continues

Greenland is situated in the Atlantic Ocean to the northeast of Canada. It has stunning fjords on its rocky coast formed by moving glaciers, and a dense icecap up to 2 km thick that covers much of the island--pressing ...

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created May 18, 2010 | popularity 4.1 / 5 (25) | comments 56 | with audio podcast

2 more glaciers gone from Glacier National Park

(AP) -- Glacier National Park has lost two more of its namesake moving icefields to climate change, which is shrinking the rivers of ice until they grind to a halt, a government researcher said Wednesday.

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created Apr 07, 2010 | popularity 4.3 / 5 (23) | comments 27

Warming to devastate glaciers, Antarctic icesheet - studies

Global warming may wipe out three-quarters of Europe's alpine glaciers by 2100 and hike sea levels by four metres (13 feet) by the year 3000 through melting the West Antarctic icesheet, two studies published ...

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created Jan 09, 2011 | popularity 3 / 5 (32) | comments 39

Researchers witness overnight breakup, retreat of Greenland glacier

NASA-funded researchers monitoring Greenland's Jakobshavn Isbrae glacier report that a 7 square kilometer (2.7 square mile) section of the glacier broke up on July 6 and 7, as shown in the image above. The ...

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created Jul 12, 2010 | popularity 4.6 / 5 (20) | comments 7 | with audio podcast

Greenland ice sheet losing mass on northwest coast (w/ Video)

(PhysOrg.com) -- Ice loss from the Greenland ice sheet, which has been increasing during the past decade over its southern region, is now moving up its northwest coast, according to a new international study.

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created Mar 23, 2010 | popularity 4.5 / 5 (20) | comments 6 | with audio podcast

New research sheds light on Antarctica's melting Pine Island Glacier

New results from an investigation into Antarctica's potential contribution to sea level rise are reported this week (Sunday 20 June) by scientists from the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), Lamont-Doherty Earth ...

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created Jun 20, 2010 | popularity 4.2 / 5 (21) | comments 15 | with audio podcast

West Antarctic ice shelves tearing apart at the seams

A new study examining nearly 40 years of satellite imagery has revealed that the floating ice shelves of a critical portion of West Antarctica are steadily losing their grip on adjacent bay walls, potentially ...

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created Mar 27, 2012 | popularity 4.9 / 5 (18) | comments 2 | with audio podcast

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.