What is a glacier?A glacier is an accumulation of ice and snow that slowly flows over land. At higher elevations, more snow typically falls than melts, adding to its mass.

Glaciers move by internal deformation of the ice, and by sliding over the rocks and sediments at the base. The weight of overlying snow, firn, and ice, and the pressure exerted by upstream and downstream ice deforms glacier ice, in a phenomenon known as creep. A glacier may slide on a thin layer of water at its base.

Glaciers, slow-moving rivers of ice, have sculpted mountains and carved valleys throughout Earth's history. They continue to flow and shape the landscape in many places today.

The NSIDC DAAC GLIMS data collection includes data from the Global Land Ice Measurements from Space (GLIMS) initiative. GLIMS is an international project to inventory the world’s glaciers and to create a comprehensive, global database of land ice through repeat surveys.This data collection’s primary data product is the GLIMS Glacier Database. The glacier database …

Glacier Parameters Search Search by geographic cooridnates (lat/lon), altitude/size/length, data contributor, and glacier features such as primary class, form, frontal characteristic, longitudinal profile, major source of nourishment, and tongue activity. Geographic Coordinates If no latitude or longitude is specified, the search defaults to the full geographical range. Enter values in …

Quick facts, basic science, and information about snow, ice, and why the cryosphere matters The cryosphere includes all of the snow and ice-covered regions across the planet.

The World Glacier Inventory (WGI) contains information for over 130,000 glaciers. Inventory parameters include geographic location, area, length, orientation, elevation, and classification. The WGI is based primarily on aerial photographs and maps with most glaciers having one data entry only. Hence ...

This illustration provides a simplified view of an ice sheet. The illustration also includes a nearby mountain glacier, giving an idea of the difference in scale between ice sheets and alpine glaciers. — Credit: NASA What is an ice cap? Ice caps are miniature ice sheets. An ice cap covers less than 50,000 square kilometers (19,300 square miles) and comprises several merged glaciers. …

Oct 31, 2019 · What defines a glacier? What are the world’s three largest glaciers? What are the largest glaciers in each region of the world? As often as the rapidly changing cryosphere is making headlines, from stories on dwindling Arctic sea ice to thawing permafrost to melting ice sheets, one would think the answers to these questions would be obvious and easy to find.

The massive lobe of Malaspina Glacier in Alaska is clearly visible in this photograph taken from a Space Shuttle flight in 1989. Agassiz Glacier is the smaller glacier to the left. The Malaspina Glacier is one of the most famous examples of this type of glacier, and is the largest piedmont glacier in the world. Spilling out of the Seward Ice Field (visible near the top of the …