The Impact Of The Human Impact On Glaciers

A glacier is a large mass of ice that flows very slowly. A glacier forms by the compression and/or crystallization of snow that has stayed in one place year round. Glaciers can be constructive and/or destructive. Glaciers can be constructive by leaving sediments behind, or destructive by gauging the earth's surface. Glaciers were once present in Minnesota, thousands of years ago, and as they retreated, they left behind large amounts of glacial meltwater and various landforms, still present today.

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.

Earth has experienced many episodes of dramatic climate changes with different periods in earth history. There have been periods during which the entire planet has been covered in ice and at another time it has been scorchingly hot and dry. In this regards, earth has experienced at least three major periods of long- term frigid climate and ice ages interspersed with periods of warm climate. The last glacial period which current glaciers are the result of it, occurring during the last years of Pleistocene, from approximately 110,000 to 10,000 years age (Clayton, 1997). Indeed, glaciers present sensitive indicators of climate change and global warming and by estimating and monitoring the dynamic evolution of these ice masses, several

The present configuration of the Great Lakes basin is the result of the movement of massive glaciers through the mid-continent, a process that began about one million years ago. . . . Studies in the Lake Superior region indicate that a river system and valleys formed by water erosion existed before the Ice Age. The Glaciers undoubtedly scoured these valleys, widening and deepening the and radically changing the drainage of the area (Encyclopedia Britannica )

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.

For many years, I have always wondered how Michigan was shaped. I did not realize that water could have such a huge impact on the way Michigan was made. From doing research, I recognized that there has been four Ice Ages on Earth. The last Ice Age, Pleistocene Epoch began and ended two million years to 12,000 years. At this time, hot and cold temperatures swayed and glaciers receded to advance into the interglacial periods. In the United States, and around the world glaciers have carved out our landscape, making what the world is today.

The human race all around the world wonders if the climate is changing due to human activity or if it is just a natural occurrence. At certain parts of the Earth's surface, the climate can be observed much differently than other locations. As the years go by the average temperature of the Earth increases by little intervals. There are several different reasons why people believe the climate is changing every year. However, the increase of worldwide population and production of heat to the atmosphere is due to the increase of human activities that take place on a daily basis. Human activity is the main cause of the global climate change. The human impact on climate exceeds any known changes due to natural processes. The impact of this human activity is often misunderstood when looking at climate change.

In the essay, “Global Warming is Eroding Glacial Ice,” Andrew C. Revkin argues that global warming is the primary cause for many of the world’s natural disasters; including flash floods, climate change, and the melting of the polar ice caps. He includes multiple accounts of expert testimony as well as a multitude amount of facts and statistics to support his theory that global warming is a threat to the world. However, in the essay “Cold Comfort for ‘Global Warming’,” Phillip Stott makes the complete opposite argument. He argues that global warming is nothing to be worried about and the melting of the polar icecaps is caused by the interglacial period we are currently in. After reading both of these essays and doing

This problem could mark either the end of human civilizations or mark the beginning of the next era of human development. It would decide on our species survival, whether there will be another mass extinction like the one 65 million years ago. The question is “How might the breaking up and melting of continental ice in Greenland and the Antarctic affect Canada’s coastline?”. In the following sections, we have gathered an abundance of information from a variety of sources from which we will discuss, and analyze. We will find out how this data can help us understand the effect of melting glaciers on Canada’s coastline, as well as how and what we could do to stop or slow it down.

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)

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.

A glacier is a body of dense ice that is formed in areas where the amount of snowfall exceeds the amount of snow melted per year such as: Greenland, Antarctica and Russia. It forms when snow accumulates in one specific area over many years, possibly centuries. The snow slowly forms into ice and each year the layer of ice increases depending on the temperature. When the glacier becomes large and heavy enough the pressure from the weight of the glacier often deforms the glacier, Which usually causes the glacier to get new feature such crevasses and seracs. Most glaciers

The glacier itself is controlled throughout a year by its balance, a summer balance combined with a winter balance. In the winter there is heavy snowfall, so large amounts of accumulation with little amounts of ablation. On the flip side when it comes to summer there is large amounts of ablation and a small amount of accumulation, the mass of a glaciers depends on the accumulation and ablation it suffers throughout the year. If the glaciers is cold based it freezes to the ground making it hard to move and in turn erode the landscape, most if not all the erosion occurs in a warm based glacier. The differing colour of each glacier is important, cold based glaciers are white in colour, with little material being picked up but on the flip side warm based glaciers are very dirty in colour and laden with material which helps the erosion

Most of the blame for climate change over the years especially after the 1850’s has been placed on humans. As long as modern humans have roamed the earth, they have been upsetting the natural balance of the earth. People have did this by clearing areas of land, killing animals, polluting water, etc. Before the “modern human”, people like the Native Americans cared for the earth. They respected the land and the people that cared for it. Unfortunately, people don’t care anymore. Until recently, people did not care for the earth. People did not realize the harm they were causing it. Now we know how detrimental things are that we continue to do and used to do.