Sentences with phrase «glacier acceleration»
The phrase "glacier acceleration" refers to the speeding up of glaciers, which are large masses of ice that move slowly over time. Climate change and other factors can cause glaciers to move faster than usual, resulting in increased melt and ice loss. Full definition
This knowledge will help us understand the affects that melting ice shelves have on glacier acceleration and, hence, on sea - level rise.
nsidc.org
Warmer summer temperatures sometimes result in glacier acceleration as melt water percolates through the glacier to its base.
Ice shelves are important because they help control glacier flow; removal of ice shelves causes rapid glacier acceleration and calving.
We are still left with the main cause of glacier acceleration in Greenland resulting from dynamic thinning of the terminus zone of the marine terminating outlet glacier reducing the effective bed pressure, allowing acceleration — the Jakobshavn effect.
What is concerning is the current intense melting, thinning and glacier acceleration observed on Pine Island Glacier ice shelf22.
Most of the mass loss is from Pine Island Bay sector of West Antarctica and the northern tip of the Peninsula where it is driven by ongoing, pronounced glacier acceleration.
The data suggested that, like mountain glaciers, melt - induced glacier acceleration actually stops in years of intense melting once subglacial water erodes through the sediments and creates channels for water flow (Sundal et al. 2011).
The impacts of ice shelf collapse and ensuing glacier acceleration are substantial, but in general, the effects of ocean melt are proving to be far more important in controlling ice sheet mass balance.
Removal of the ice shelf causes much more dramatic glacier acceleration by reducing two forces that counteract glacier flow.
6 April 2002: Record - high temperatures and melting in the austral summer earlier this year caused significant glacier acceleration.
Mass balance transfer to the calving front is a slow process with a large lag time (centuries) and is not capable of playing a meaningful role in the recent relatively large and sudden glacier accelerations (Pfeffer, 2007).
Similar patterns of ice calving and retreat leading to rapid glacier acceleration have also been observed in Greenland.
Around the Antarctic Peninsula, a number of ice shelves have recently dramatically collapsed [2 - 4], resulting in glacier acceleration, thinning and grounding line retreat [5 - 7].
In the wake of an ice shelf collapse, however, the resulting glacier acceleration can raise sea level by introducing a new ice mass into the ocean.
20 February 2003: As the glacier acceleration continues and propagates upstream, the lower portion of the glacier loses tens of meters in elevation.
It's this glacier acceleration that's responsible for most of the increase in ice loss from the continent and this is contributing to sea - level rise.»
This upstream propagation continued from July 2005 through July 2006, with the near - front deceleration of 15 % and up - glacier acceleration of 25 %, with the transition between speedup and slowdown at 15 km.