Essay On Glaciers

Glaciers sculpt the mountains on the surface of the Earth like great rivers and valleys of ice. They flow incessantly and landscape in many places in the Earth today are shaped by them. When the fallen snow is compressed and thickens into ice, it forms glaciers that have erosive characteristics. When snow remains in a location long enough to form ice, glaciers are formed. The most unique characteristic of the glaciers is their ability to move under its own weight. They flow like very slow rivers because of their extreme masses. They can differ in sizes, while some are as small as football fields others can be dozens or hundreds of kilometres large. (National Snow and Ice Data Center, 2017).

Valley glaciers also known as Alpine glaciers or mountain

Most of the visible light that falls on the snow and ice is reflected back without any colour preference hence giving it a white appearance. But sometimes snow appears blue too. This is because, as the light travels down the ice/snow, the ice grain scatter a large amount of light, absorbing more of one colour and less of another. Deep snow tends to absorb red light, reflecting the blue tints often seen in snow. Most of the time plants or organisms within the snowpack also influence on the colour of the snow. For example, Watermelon snow look as if its colour is either red or pink. This colour is due to a form of cryophilic which is a cold loving and fresh water algae that has red pigment in it thus appears red. It is usually found in high alpine areas or along the coastline of polar areas. Snow is a great insulator. Animals living the regions which experience snow dig up snow and hid inside it to sleep through the winter season. Snow is made up of ice crystals that have air trapped in them. The trapped air cannot move so there is very little heat transfer, hence good isolation. The temperature of the surface of the snow depends on the air directly above it. The colder the air above, the colder the layer of snow will be. Snow near the ground in a deeper snowpack is relatively much warmer. (National Snow and Ice Data Center,