Introduction
Glaciers are essential elements of the world’s ecosystem and occupy 10% of the landmasses in the globe. They are enormous ice masses covering the ancient igneous and metamorphic rocks found in regions along the polls and at high elevations in mountains with permanent snow cover. These large ice bodies are found in areas like Antarctica, Greenland, and Northern Canada, where there are cool and conducive climatic conditions required for their formation. Glaciers can range widely in size; Lambert, which is located in Antarctica, is the world’s largest glacier and has an approximate measurement of 100 km width, 400km length, and 2.5 km depth. Therefore, these ice bodies can be hundreds of miles long or even small as a football field. Glaciers are important as they store 75% fresh water in the globe; this makes them the largest freshwater reservoirs on the planet. Additionally, glacier ice is a valuable resource of climate change assessment as it can be thousands of years old; therefore, through extraction and analysis of the ice, researchers can learn how the earth’s climate was like thousands of years ago. This paper will focus on the processes of glacial formation, types of glaciers, causes of glacier melting, and how the melting impacts the Coastline.
For glaciers to come into existence, a particular criterion has to be met. Snow must remain in location for a sufficiently long time to transform into ice. Therefore, the environment has to be cold enough in order to have lengthy periods of massive snow. According to Bouquety (108), the abundance of snow and cold climate are the conditions necessary for glaciers to form, adding that Martian climate was characterized by glaciated highlands at polar latitudes and high elevations. Snow does not melt at low temperatures but rather, it builds up and is compacted into ice. As new layers of snow burry and compress the previously existing layers, the snow crystallizes, forming grains similar to sugar crystals. The crystals grow larger gradually and cause slow compaction of the snow, thereby increasing in density. This gradual process takes a number of decades leading to the formation of huge masses of ice (glacier). A mountain glacier may be pushed by its own weight where it separates from the rock wall and slide downwards, slowly flowing into the valley like an ice river. (This is the unique thing about a glacier; in spite of being solid in nature, they can still flow down their paths like very slow rivers due to their sheer size). These flowing masses of ice pick rocks and debris as they ascend, leading to the formation mountains called marines upon accumulation. Extremely loaded landscapes composed of white flat bottom valleys and many lakes are left behind when glacier melts due to high temperatures.
There are two main types of glaciers, i.e., continental and Alpine glaciers. Continental glaciers are present in extreme polar regions like Antarctica and Greenland, where climatic conditions cool over extended periods of time, building up snow which accumulates in vast amounts and compacts to form ice. The Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets are the world’s current continental glaciers and makeup 68% of the earth’s fresh water. Bell et al. (1323) state that most of the fresh water in the world is contained in Antarctica which stores it in two ice sheets, i.e., the East Antarctic ice sheet and the West Antarctic ice sheet. These glaciers cover flat areas; however, gravitational forces act on them and cause them to flow from the regions where its thickest towards the thinner edges. Alpine glaciers are also called valley glaciers and originate in temperate and polar regions. They can also be found in the tropical areas in high mountains. The slope of the ice surface primarily controls the flow of valley glaciers, which is driven by gravitational forces. Their growth is due to the accumulation of snow over time, where the rate of snow is greater than the rate of melting.
Glaciers have started to melt due to the rising temperatures, which can be tied back to human activity. The primary culprit of the increasing temperatures is carbon dioxide emissions. Qiaon & Wieb (244) state that carbon dioxide emissions have been the leading cause of global warming, negatively affecting oceans. Increased carbon dioxide in the air stops the heat from the sun resulting in temperature rise, which melts the glaciers, thereby increasing the sea waters. Warming of the oceans is another factor that causes glaciers to melt, which affects the marine ice sheets found along the coastal regions of Alaska.
The melting of glaciers has resulted in extreme sea levels and coastal flooding. When glaciers melt, the run-off increases the ocean water, and this contributes to the rising sea-level. Frederikse et al. (395) state that previous assessments that have been done to determine the causes of sea-level rise summed up contributions of ice mass loss. Additionally, The U.S national Climate Assessment affirmed that melting ice has been the leading contributor to rising sea level during the past years, and this will still continue for the century to come. A large proportion of the water on earth is frozen and stored in glaciers; the water then flows into the oceans and seas when ice melts. When melting glaciers add to the sea levels, coastal erosion increases. This is the loss of coastal lands due to the removal of sediments from the shoreline. The elevating storm surge and the warming air and ocean temperatures create intense coastal storms like hurricanes and typhoons. Martinez et al. (148) maintain that the recent extreme storms have created a new coastal hazard adding that coastal erosion in major beaches was linked to oceanographic variables, e.g., rise in sea level. Coastal erosion is a grave threat to our coastal ecosystem. When the sea level rises, flooding occurs, and intense wave activities erode the rocks and soil of the Coastline. Property damage, plant and animal habitat degradation, and loss of land are some of the risks associated with coastal erosion. Additionally, a recent study shows that Mediterranean coasts are at a high risk of compound flooding.
As glaciers melt and the ocean warms, the ocean currents continue disrupting the weather patterns globally. This implies that industries thriving on fisheries and the communities living on coastal regions will continue experiencing multimillion dollar bills on disaster recovery as floods begin to be more recurrent and storms more destructive. Lindesay & Rebeca (91) state that increased sea levels have contributed to deadly and destructive storm surges like those associated with Hurricane at Katrina and more frequent flooding, which is disruptive and expensive. Additionally, animals like polar bears may lose their home thereby spending more time on land and this leads to increased conflicts between individuals and bears. It is also worthy of note that glacier melts disrupt the standard patterns of ocean circulation, and this has been evident in Antarctica and Greenland, where the changing circulation has been connected to the collapse of fishery industries and more devastating storms and hurricanes.
Conclusion
In conclusion, our costs provide a beautiful place to live for humans, animals, and plants; however, our communities and habitats are at risk of destruction due to coastal erosion caused by the melting of glaciers due to increased temperatures. Glaciers are enormous ice masses covering the ancient igneous and metamorphic rocks found in regions along the polls and at high elevations in mountains with permanent snow cover There are two main types of glaciers, i.e., continental and Alpine glaciers. Lambert, which is located in Antarctica, is the world’s largest glacier and has an approximate measurement of 100 km width, 400km length, and 2.5 km depth. Glaciers are important as they store 75% of the fresh water on earth; this makes them the largest freshwater reservoirs on the planet. Additionally, they can be significant variables of climate change assessment as they are thousands of years old. Increased temperatures, which can be tied to human activities, are the leading cause of melting ice since a large fraction of the earth’s water is frozen and stored in glaciers. Therefore, the water level in the sea rises, increasing coastal erosion. When the sea level rises, flooding occurs, and intense wave activities erode the rocks and soil of the Coastline. This leads to great destruction of property and plant and animal habitat.
References
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Frederikse, Thomas, et al. “The causes of sea-level rise since 1900.” Nature 584.7821 (2020): 393-397. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2591-3
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