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melts each year, causing snow to accumulate and compress into ice over time. The weight of the accumulating ice eventually causes the ice to flow downhill, forming a glacier.
A glacier grows when more snow accumulates in the glacier's area than melts or evaporates. This excess snow compacts into ice over time, causing the glacier to advance and thicken. The process is slow and can take many years or decades for a glacier to visibly grow in size.
The most important condition for the growth of glaciers is a balance between snow accumulation and snowmelt. When more snow falls in a glacier area than melts during the summer, the glacier can grow and advance. Temperature and precipitation patterns also play a significant role in glacier growth.
A confined glacier is a glacier that is surrounded by natural barriers such as mountains or valleys, which limit its movement and expansion. This type of glacier is constrained in its flow, leading to a more defined shape and direction of movement.
A glacier is formed through the accumulation of snow that compresses into ice over time. As more snow falls and compacts, it displaces air and forms glacial ice. This process is aided by the weight of the overlying snow, which causes the lower layers to compress and recrystallize into ice.
The Continentail glacier are the largest glacial bodies which are several kilometers deep and cover a large area of more than thousands of kilometers. There are only two continental glaciers the one which covers most of the area of Antarctica and Greenland.
Snowfall contributes to the growth of glaciers by adding layers of snow that compress into ice over time. Glaciers are sustained by a balance between snow accumulation and ice melting. Increased snowfall can lead to larger glaciers, while decreased snowfall can result in glacier retreat.
In New Zealand there are Franz Josef glacier and Fox glacier In the French Alps there is the Mer de Glace The largest glaciers in the world are the ice sheets on Greenland, the second largest glacier in the world, and the ice sheet on Antarctica is the largest in the world. glaciers are riveres of ice that moves very slowly.
True. Even when a glacier is retreating, the ice in the upstream area continues to flow towards the downstream terminus. The retreat is due to the melting happening at a faster rate than the glacier is moving forward.
The zone of wastage refers to the area of a glacier where more ice is melting or sublimating than is being replenished by snow accumulation. It is typically at the lower end of a glacier where temperatures are warmer, causing increased melting.
simple . . it's because the glacier melted . . . The snow actually forms a glacier through a long process...a metamorphosis of sorts. Snow (which is an ice crystal) falls in an area that stays cold enough year round that snow doesn't totally melt in the summer. There has to be a large accumulation of snow and it must be in a place that isn't prone to avalanches or severe enough wind to blow the snow away. Or (as in the poles, the snow that falls stays because it stays cold enough that the snow doesn't melt all year.) Over a period of time, new layers of snow pile on top of previous snows, some parts melt so the layers pack more and more tightly. The transformation becomes known as firn. Eventually the firn transforms into a solid bluish mass filled with air bubbles. It can take a few decades or much longer.
A glacier is older than an iceberg, because an iceberg is a piece of ice that fell off a glacier.