Glaciers,+sea+ice+and+climate+change

= = ** Jacqui Bell and Samantha Goodale **  Glaciers and icecaps are cover around 10% of the earth. Glaciers are formed from snowflakes accumulated when the snow falls for a period of time that exceeds the melting time in the summer. The profound effect that glaciers have on topography can be seen in the glacial valley in Wyoming, as well as in the Great Lakes (USGS, Water Science Basics: Glaciers and icecaps. []).

In February millions of people were forced to flee to low-lying areas due to the melting glaciers in Antarctica ( CBS News, [|www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/02/25/tech/main4829282.shtml]). According to the head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Earth has about six more years at the current carbon dioxide pollution rates before Earth is sentenced to a future of severe global warming. Colin Summerhayes, the executive director of the Britain-based Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research says that, “If the west Antarctica sheet collapses, then we’re looking at a sea level rise of between 3 feet, 4 inches, to 5 feet”—that’s 312,000 Empire State Buildings (CBS News). More relocating is expected due to the report released by the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change) as of 2007: a sea level rise of 7-23 inches by the end of the century. A study conducted by the journal //Nature// found a 1 degree increase in Antarctica’s average annual temperature since 1957 (CBS News). Glaciologists express annual mass balances of a glacier in ‘meter water equivalent’ it takes the different densities of change measurements in ice and snow into account. One meter of ice thickness corresponds to about .9 m w.e. For example, in France, the Caresér lost, -2.8 m w.e. (Science Daily, Feb. 4, 2009, []).

(http://geology.com/news/images/glacier-graph.gif) These are graphs of glacier thicknesses over the past 49 years. The first is specific to particular glaciers, while the second is an average loss. It's painfully obvious that due to global warming, the glaciers are going to continue to melt at an increasing rate. ==== Accor ding  to Clarissa Enes, Sara Geriak, and Eric Lewis (Oceanography), "The melting of ice caps [also] has a huge impact on the rise of sea level. .. the volume of water is affected by the temperature." ====


 * Animated Topography of Glacier National Park.** (It may take a few seconds for the animation to load).

"The glacier story is always changing, but it can be caught and preserved with the proper use of a camera." - A. E. Harrison

**Here are a few QUICK FACTS**

 * == Glaciers and ice sheets are play a dramatic role in the Earth's climate. ==
 * == Ice and snow receive 60 to 90 percent of the solar radiation. ==
 * == The majority of the world's ice, 29 × 106 cubic kilometers (approximately 7 million cubic miles), is in Antarctica. The Greenland Ice Sheet holds 2.95 × 106 cubic kilometers (706,000 cubic miles) of ice. ==

[] [|www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/02/25/tech/main4829282.shtml] [] []

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