NASA Explains How Do Glaciers Melt

Space.com

Learn how glaciers melt and contribute to seas rising in this animated explainer from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.   Credit: NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Transcript

00:00The sheet of ice that covers Greenland contains enough frozen water to raise oceans by 25

00:06feet across the globe.

00:08As the planet warms, glaciers melt, causing sea levels to rise.

00:12But not all of that melt happens at the surface.

00:16In the summertime, rivers and pools of meltwater find their way down through the glacier to

00:22the bed below.

00:23From there, the water runs beneath the glacier until it reaches the ocean.

00:27Because meltwater contains no salt, it weighs less than ocean water and rises up the front

00:33of the glacier in what scientists call a plume.

00:37Around Greenland, oceans are cold and fresh near the surface and warm and salty at depth.

00:42As the plume rises, it draws in the warm, salty water melting the glacier face from the bottom

00:48up.

00:49Eventually, a piece of the glacier breaks off, making an iceberg in a process known as calving.

00:57As the oceans warm, calving speeds up, causing glaciers to retreat and flow faster.

01:05Faster glaciers dump more ice into the oceans and drive sea levels higher across the globe.

01:10After all, according to the water from the glacier behind the glacier between two bathrooms, the

01:15heavens-leterre we have to change, through the居00 to the glacier with the sea level,

01:15perhaps the sky level.

01:16As the ocean will be opened and the sea level above it.

01:18The ocean will be placed into the sky, as the sea level.

01:19As the ocean will be Attorney-leter.

01:20As the sea level above the future of the glacier кот-leter.

01:21The ocean will be strengthened into the ocean with the ocean.

01:22The ocean will beально collected in the ocean.

01:24The ocean will be spent in a third居00 to the ocean.

01:25So clearly, a person hasn't been quoted in the ocean.

01:29But at the ocean is not in the ocean.

01:30He's been blown up in the ocean.

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