Global Environmental Concerns

When President Taft created Glacier National Park in 1910, it had about 150 glaciers. Since then, the number has decreased to less than 30, and those remaining have shrunk by two-thirds. Dr. Daniel Fagre (2015) predicts that within the next 30 years most if not all of the park's glaciers will melt. Glacier National Park is not the only place effected. The snow on Kilimanjaro has melted more than 80 percent since 1912. Glaciers at the Garhwal Himalaya in India are melting so fast that researchers believe that most central and eastern Himalayan glaciers could disappear by 2035. Greenlands coastal glaciers have melted to the point of no return. “These peripheral glaciers and ice caps can be thought of as colonies of ice that are in rapid decline,

Ehrlich on the other hand, has a very different approach to the way she talks about the issue. She uses a lot of sensory images and personal experience. She mentally paints a picture for us to see what is happening. She uses very intriguing vocabulary to describe the massive glaciers. In her essay, she uses subtle personification to describe the way the ice stands. Ehrlich talks about the way people go to see the glaciers fall and fail, but they are not interested in the strength it takes for them to hold themselves together. She makes an interesting statement of how glaciers are historians and archivists of our world. She describes how they hold everything from dust, to pollen and even gasses. This helps our world to look back and be able to see the way that the environment is changing over the years. She also makes a reference that the deterioration of the glaciers is a result of our “…smokestack and tailpipe society” (271). This seemed to be a harsh statement towards society as a whole. Without the new technologies, buildings, cars and everything that is grouped in with being considered a smokestack society, our world would not be anywhere near where it is today.

Remote sensing has become a very valuable tool for documenting the response of glacier to changing climate (Bamber and Kwok, 2003; Kuhn, 2007; Pellikka, 2007; Solomon et al, 2007) because the rugged terrain, inaccessibility and legendary poor weather of glacier areas has resulted in relatively few field- based studies. Indeed, in order to use glaciers and their changes as indicators of climate change, or as an early warning signal for sea level rise, remote sensing is the only tool to provide glacier change information from all the continents and from a large number of glaciers and ice sheets. On the other hands, because space borne and airborne remote sensing data provide superior cost- effective and area effective data and methods for monitoring the glaciers and their changes, part of this monitoring can be carried out by it.

A glacier is a large body of ice that moves slowly across land and are formed by there being a higher snow gain rather than a snow melt. Glaciers move by a small amount of ice melting and the glacier sliding. Glaciers can help and destroy the landscape in front of them but they can also shape the land into something amazing. Glaciers were once present in Minnesota thousands of years ago and played a massive role on the landscape we live on today, and as they melted they left behind large amounts of water and formations.

A glacier occurs when the climate of an area is so cold that new snow does not completely melt each summer and more snow is added in the winter. After many winters the accumulation of this snow becomes compact and re-crystallizes, thus forming a glacier. Currently, glaciers cover about ten percent of the Earth's surface. Yet, in the past, glaciers covered much more land and were thousands of meters thick. (Tierney)

Global warming persists as one of the world’s biggest issues today that is causing several problems that include the world’s severe climate and rising sea levels while possibly being the main cause as to why all of mankind could go extinct. This global crisis is known as the steady increase in the world’s average temperature of the earth’s atmosphere and oceans that are proven to be permanently changing the world’s climate (Live Science, 2014). This phenomenon is strongly evident as Earth’s temperature has also increased by 2 degrees Celsius since the last century. As a result of this, Canadian glaciers are melting at a higher rate of 2 to 3 feet than of what it was a decade before (Lerner, 2014). All astoundingly happening while the Artic Canadian permafrost has begun to melt (Davidson,2015). The state of this issue in Canada does not seem to be improving as validated through both the scientific evidence as well as the blatant and irrefutable observable evidence.

Farge has been tracking glaciers in Glacier National Park for 25 years. The degrading ice fields are measured and photographed often. A once famous Boulder Glacier has been left to slush, with the same still happening to many Glaciers. In the park 50 glaciers existed in the mid nineteen fifties, now only 25 are left. In 1977 Gore made a speech on Grinnell Glacier about climate change. With the once 15-20 foot drop they were worried about falling ice. Today, the drop isn’t even to your kneecap. Cloud Glacier Peak is predicted to die in 2035. The decline has led to a loss of homes for many species. Animals that live near glacier edges enjoyed the conditioned temperatures, are now losing that. With the loss of these Glacier sea levels are rising

The expanse of the Earth's surface they cover depends on which period of the differ-ent Ice Ages is examined. For example, during the last Ice Age glaciers covered 32% of Earth's surface.

The facts presented about the fast rate at which glaciers are wearing out are really scaring. With glaciers like Columbia Glacier melting at an alarming rate of 80 feet per day and it current thickness only standing at 1,300 feet after wearing down for the last 5 years, there is reason for humanity to be wary of the trends the world warmth is taking. The increasing temperatures are causing all these occurrences which are affecting both humans and animals.

The glacier is very wide. It can break up the continent of Rodinia. That means the river went into the ocean. It changed the ocean. It made the CO2 levels go down. When the CO2 levels went down it made the ice coverage increase and

A gravimetric analysis using Gravity Recovery And Climate Experiment (GRACE) data from 2002 through 2006 in the Patagonian Icefields reported a mass loss rate of -24.3 ± 4.3 km3a-1 (Chen et al., 2007). A time series analysis comparing ASTER and SRTM DEMs by Willis et al. (2012) also observed a mass loss rate of about −24.4 ± 1.4 Gt a−1 between 2000 and 2012 in Patagonian Ice fields, which is equivalent to +0.067 ± 0.004 mm a−1 of sea level rise. Likewise, another spatiotemporal analysis in the region by White and Copland (2013) found a net loss of the extent of the glaciers in 130 basins across the SPI from 1970 to late 2000. Dixon and Ambinakudige (2015) also observed glacial retreat in the San Quintin, HPN1, Pared Norte, Strindberg, Acodado, Nef, San Quintin, Colonia, HPN4, and Benito glaciers in the North Patagonian Icefields by analyzing ASTER stereo and Landsat datasets. Lopez et al. (2010) recounted a maximum retreat of about 12 km in the Cordillera Darwin Icefield (CDI) between 1945 and 2005 by comparing aerial photographs, Landsat and ASTER datasets. Melkonian et al. (2013) analyzed ASTER and SRTM data from 2000 to 2011and reported varied thinning behavior along the north-south axis of the CDI, with an

Glaciers are one of the most fundamental phenomenon on the planet, and much of their purpose and impact on earth has been well documented and published. Ice sheets, Ice Caps and Glaciers trap nearly 90% of the world's fresh water, and are replenished by snowfall each year. Their existence on this planet dates back 650,000,000 years and yet they are always moving, always shifting and always melting. Before, human existence and even during the brief era of humans, ice dominated all of the earth's landmass and have regulated, created and altered many of the landscapes around the world.

Along with the deep seas, there are signs of rising sea levels. This is being contributed to the melting of Glaciers. According to National Geographic’s “The famed snows of Kilimanjaro have melted more than 80 percent since 1912. Glaciers in the Garhwal Himalaya in India are retreating so fast that researchers believe that most central and eastern Himalayan glaciers could virtually disappear

Discusses the environmental impact of glaciers melting in the Himalayas. Well in grumbine study he discusses how the increase in average temperature by even 1 degree Celsius would have a huge impact on the region. The first thing grumbine discusses is how climate change and melting of glaciers can sometimes be a good thing. In his research paper he discusses how the excessive amount of water in the area has contributed to the large amount of biodiversity in the region. Grumbine later in his study talks about the situation in China where the Melting of glaciers has come to them as a blessing. Grumbine states that 12% of runoff is glacier discharge which provides water 25% of the people in western China during the off season.

At 5,895 meters, Mt. Kilimanjaro is the tallest freestanding mountain. But lately, the glaciers on this towering mountain have been noticeably decreasing. The media has conflicting headlines and theories. Scientists have been studying this problem for many years, the receding glaciers have not been narrowed down to one exact cause. Theories range from climate change to undersurface magma, yet, no one knows how we can limit the melting glaciers.