By studying the factors that cause icebergs to break up, researchers hope to better understand the influences that lead to ice shelf breakup, and to better predict how ice shelves will respond to a warming climate. Scientists have noticed that the way icebergs break up when they reach warmer waters mirrors the disintegration of Antarctic ice shelves. Credit: Erik Kuschel/ImaggeoĬlimate scientists study icebergs as they break up for clues to the processes that cause ice shelf collapse. Glacier water tainted with iron oxides gives the appearance bright orange-red icicles. Its origin is unknown as it might have drifted from afar like countless others. The Greenland Ice Sheet extends about 1.7 million square kilometers (656,000 square miles), covering most of the island of Greenland, and is about three times the size of Texas.Ī bleeding iceberg lodges into the sea ice near Mohnbukta, at the Eastcoast of Svalbard, a Norwegian archipelago. The Antarctic Ice Sheet contains 30 million cubic kilometers (7.2 million cubic miles) of ice. The Antarctic Ice Sheet extends almost 14 million square kilometers (5.4 million square miles), roughly the area of the contiguous United States and Mexico combined. Together, the Antarctic and Greenland Ice Sheets contain more than 99 percent of the freshwater ice on Earth. During the last ice age, ice sheets also covered much of North America and Scandinavia. The two ice sheets on Earth today cover most of Greenland and Antarctica. An ice sheet is a mass of glacial land ice extending more than 50,000 square kilometers (19,300 square miles). Is an ice sheet different from a glacier?Īn ice sheet is a type of glacier. For most glaciers, this process takes more than a hundred years. In very old glacier ice, crystals can reach the size of an adult fist. Over time, larger ice crystals become so compressed that any air pockets between them are tiny. At this point, it is about two-thirds as dense as water. After about a year, the snow turns into firn-an intermediate state between snow and glacier ice. Gradually, the grains grow larger and the air pockets between the grains get smaller, causing the snow to slowly compact and increase in density. This compression forces the snow to re-crystallize, initially forming grains similar in size and shape to grains of sugar. Each year, new layers of snow bury and compress the previous layers. Glaciers begin to form when snow remains and accumulates long enough to transform into ice. Credit: Riccardo Pravettoni/GRID-Arendal Sustained climatic changes will eventually lead to glacier advance or retreat. This graphic shows how glaciers gain or lose mass in the form of snow and ice.
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