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. Eventually, the surplus of built-up ice begins to flow downhill. At lower elevations, there is usually a higher rate of melt or icebergs break off that removes ice mass.

The Taylor Glacier is an Antarctic glacier about 54 kilometers (34 miles) long, flowing from the plateau of Victoria Land into the western end of Taylor Valley. — Credit: Eli Duke/Flickr. Valley commonly originate from mountain glaciers or icefields, these glaciers spill down valleys, looking much like giant tongues.

Glacier melt delivers nutrients into lakes, rivers, and oceans. Those nutrients can drive blooms of phytoplankton—the base of aquatic and marine food chains. Meanwhile, gradual glacier melt sustains stream habitats for plants and animals. So, glaciers often have an indirect impact on wildlife and fisheries.

The glacier database includes measurements of glacier geometry, glacier area, snowlines, supraglacial lakes and rock debris, and other glacial attributes, as well as browse images. The collection includes data from approximately 70 percent of the world's 200,000 glaciers, and new glaciers are continually added.

Glacier number 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.

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 ...

Is an ice sheet different from a glacier? Ice sheets are much larger than glaciers. An ice sheet is a mass of glacial land ice, extending more than 50,000 square kilometers (20,000 square miles). Ice sheets can cover underlying canyons and mountain ranges. During the last ice age, ice sheets also covered much of North America and Scandinavia.

Oct 31, 2019 · On the other hand, according to the RGI data set, the three largest glaciers in the world are Flade Isblink Ice Cap in Greenland, Carney Island Ice Cap in Antarctica, and Seward Glacier in Alaska. Antarctica’s Pine Island Glacier, which is widely thought to be the largest glacier in the world, did not make the top three from either data set.

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 photograph), it covers over 5,000 square kilometers as it spreads across the coastal plain.