Animation: How a Glacier Melts
9 months ago
2
When warm summer air melts the surface of a glacier, the meltwater bores holes down through the ice. It makes its way all the way down to the bottom of the glacier where it runs between the ice and the glacier bed, and eventually shoots out in a plume at the glacier base and into the surrounding ocean.
The meltwater plume is lighter than the surrounding ocean water because it doesn't contain salt. So it rises toward the surface, mixing the warm ocean water upward in the process. The warm water then rubs up against the bottom of the glacier, causing even more of the glacier to melt. This often leads to calving – ice cracking and breaking off into large ice chunks (icebergs) – at the front end, or terminus of the glacier.
Loading comments...
-
0:11
Chris & Ola
1 year agoMELTING CAVE ICICLES
3 -
42:36
Rumor has it
1 year agoThe melting ice of the Arctic
8 -
15:38
RageAgainstTheState
5 months agoIs Glacier Melt Accelerating at Glacier National Park?
522 -
0:30
GeologyForestryEngineering
3 years ago2021 Winter snow melt
30 -
0:17
High Speed
3 years agoTime lapse of melting snow
26 -
4:00
Monkeysee
7 years agoOn Science - Glacier Melting Fast
55 -
0:25
cynsheng
3 years ago $0.39 earnedFlying over a glacier
3771 -
0:23
PopoNextcarrot
3 years agoMelting snow in June
14 -
5:00
All Things Future, Tech & Humanity
1 year agoWhat If All The Glaciers Melted?
4 -
4:33
Knowledge of Vivek
1 year agoKing Penguins and Melting Glaciers I Our Frozen Planet I BBC Earth
18