"Glacier flow" refers to the movement or motion of a glacier. It happens when the ice of a glacier gradually slides or moves downhill due to gravity, often at a slow pace like a very slow-moving river of ice.
Full definition
A full explanation will require numerical modeling
of glacier flow, but observations to date suggest that ice shelves act as «braking» systems on the glaciers behind them.
If enough fresh water from melting
glaciers flows into the North Atlantic, this would make the seawater less salty and less dense, so that it couldn't sink anymore.
Individual chunks seen in the image range from 1 to several kilometers long, and chains of the bergs seem to mark the edges of nitrogen
glaciers flowing from the icy highlands onto a broad plain.
In 2009, using ICESat, measurements of both Greenland and Antarctica found that dynamic thinning (ice loss resulting from
accelerated glacier flow) now reached all latitudes in Greenland, and had intensified at key areas of Antarctica's grounding line.
Since ice shelves act like plugs, removing them lets inland
glaciers flow faster into the ocean, and that will raise sea levels.
Around 1 billion people rely
on glacier flows for water, farming and energy in the Himalayas and surrounding regions of Asia, according to the Guardian.
The crack remained dormant for decades, stuck in a section of the ice shelf called a suture zone, an area
where glaciers flowing into the ice shelf come together.
Around 1 billion people rely on
glacier flows for water, farming and energy in the Himalayas and surrounding regions of Asia, according to
The runoff from Zongo
glacier flows through 10 hydropower plants that currently generate some 25 percent of Bolivia's electricity.
The shapes of the boulder fields were another clue: because
glaciers flow more rapidly in their centre than at their edges, landslide debris tends to get stretched into ever - lengthening ellipses as it moves down a valley.
The data revealed that
as glaciers flow faster, they stretch out and thin, which reduces their weight and lifts them farther off the bedrock.
«There's a big effort to model
how glaciers flow in Antarctica, and these models need a landscape over which glaciers can flow,» Thomson told OurAmazingPlanet.
The BBC, New York Times, Climate Central and dozens of other publications highlighted the news and linked to this striking visualization of
Antarctic glaciers flowing thousands of miles from the heart of the continent to its coast.
The Smith, Pope and
Kohler glaciers flow into the Dotson and Crosson ice shelves in the Amundsen Sea embayment in West Antarctica, the part of the continent with the largest decline in ice.
Granite peaks rise in spires to the sky
massive glaciers flow down from the perpetual icefields that blanket Patagonia's vast massifs.
A vivid animation showing the retreat of the Qori Kalis
glacier flowing out of Quelccaya can be seen here.
«Seventy percent of water from the
melting glaciers flows down to Pakistan and about 90 percent of the irrigation is done with this water.»
The findings, published today in Geophysical Research Letters, represent the first detailed assessment of
changing glacier flow in Western Palmer Land — the southwestern corner of the Antarctic Peninsula.
That hidden ridge forms a sticky spot, which influences the behavior of the Whillans Ice Stream in profound ways: Although
other glaciers flow continuously, the Whillans stands still most of the time but then lurches forward twice a day, advancing roughly 45 centimeters each time.
Ice shelves are thick, floating platforms of ice formed
when glaciers flow from the land onto the ocean surface.
Changes in mass, rather than height, control how the ice shelves and
associated glaciers flow into the ocean,» Paolo said.
The team looked at how meltwater from two small
mountain glaciers flowed through the system and influenced the mountain streams, rivers and groundwater all year long.
Most Antarctic
glaciers flow straight into the ocean in deep submarine troughs, the grounding line is the place where their base leaves the sea floor and begins to float.
Focus of Study Glacier and rock interactions: how the underlying rock
influences glacier flow and how past glaciations have affected tectonics.
Once the ice shelf retreats to the grounding line, the buoyant force that used to
offset glacier flow becomes negligible, and the glacier picks up speed on its way to the sea.
The map of ice flow speed revealed a complex pattern where fast
glacier flow near the coast extended well inland in narrow tributary bands.
Removal of the ice shelf causes much more dramatic glacier acceleration by reducing two forces that
counteract glacier flow.
Not only
are glaciers flowing faster towards sea, but there is also a rapid increase in the summer surface melt Greenland experiences, leading to accelerating mass loss from the Greenland Ice Sheet.
Li, D., and R. T. Pierrehumbert 2011:
Sea glacier flow and dust transport on Snowball Earth, Geophys.
During the last (Pinedale) glaciation, the northern Yellowstone
outlet glacier flowed out of Yellowstone Park and down the Yellowstone River Valley into the Paradise Valley.
Ice cores are local paleothermometers, telling past temperature where they are (or where the snow fell,
if glacier flow has caused ice in a core to have come from a significant distance).
Ice shelves are important because they help
control glacier flow; removal of ice shelves causes rapid glacier acceleration and calving.
A recurring statement was that we have essentially no skill at modeling dynamic processes of
accelerated glacier flow, and thus there is low to no predictive ability for either the collapse of ice shelfs or the effects of accelerated flow following ice shelf collapse.
These measurements provide the first direct evidence that Western Palmer Land is losing ice due to
increased glacier flow — a process known as dynamical imbalance.
As glaciers flow into the water, the ice shelves grow until some point when a large iceberg breaks off, and then the process is repeated.
The findings of this research give a clearer picture of
how glacier flow affects the Greenland Ice Sheet and shows that this dynamic process is dominated by a small number of glaciers.
But one factor that scientists increasingly believe to be important is how sea - water and ice interact
where glaciers flow into the oceans.
The Smith, Pope and
Kohler glaciers flow into the Dotson and Crosson ice shelves in the Amundsen Sea embayment in West Antarctica, the part of the continent with the largest loss of ice mass.
Around 1 billion people rely on
glacier flows for water, farming and energy in the Himalayas and surrounding regions of Asia, according to the Guardian.