Two kinds of glaciers are continental glaciers and valley glaciers. They are different because a continental glacier covers much of a continent and a valley glacier forms in a mountain valley.

Continental glaciers are continuous masses of ice that are much larger than alpine glaciers. Small continental glaciers are called ice fields. Domed and roughly circular ice caps are bigger than ice fields but smaller than ice sheets. Smaller outlet glaciers can flow from ice caps.

Continental glaciers cover parts of continental land masses like Greenland but, Alpine glaciers are found high in mountain valleys, above the snow-line. Differences: Location; Alpine glaciers are only found on mountain tops but continental glaciers are only found at the earth’s poles regardless of elevation.

Glaciers are ice that moves. Continental glaciers form in a central location with ice moving outward in all directions. Alpine glaciers form in high mountains and travel through valleys. Ice caps cover large areas.

Gangotri Glacier

Glaciers of the Himalayas finds that in addition to changing temperatures and precipitation patterns, black carbon deposits – air-borne particles generated by incomplete combustion from brick kilns, diesel exhaust, and the burning of biomass – are accelerating glacier and snow melt in these ranges.

Himalayan glaciers are melting twice as fast since 2000 as they were in the 25 years before due to human-caused climate change, researchers reported in Science Advances in 2019. “As warming occurs and the ice melts, the pieces can move downhill more easily, lubricated by the water,” explained Richard B.

Glaciers are very sensitive to climate change. Higher average temperatures are causing glaciers to melt faster than they can be replenished by winter snows. Avalanches. Avalanche is a sudden flow of a large mass of snow or ice down a slope or cliff sometimes at speeds exceeding 160 km per hour.

A crevasse is simply a deep crack in a glacier or ice sheet.