CORE CONCEPT OF GLACIERS AND MELTING GLACIERS EFFECTING THE GLOBAL ENVIRONMENT

Abstract

Glaciers and ice sheets are found almost in every continent of the world for more than thirty million years and are the large persistent body of perennial accumulation of dense crystalline snow and ice that exist intermittently over a period of time in Polar Regions and in the mountain ranges of landforms. Glaciers are constantly moving and melting because of internal and external pressure and gravity under its own weight. Although extensive glaciers systems lies on different mountain ranges of the landforms in the world i.e. more than seven thousand glaciers lies in Africa, Andes, Alaska, Canada, Greenland, Eurasia, European Alps, New Zeeland, Nepal, Norway, Pakistan, South America and in North America Continent. In the mountain landforms, Pakistan has more glacial ice in the Himalayan Range, Karakorum Range and Koh-Hindu-Kush Range. Glaciers also exist in southern hemisphere in Antarctic Region, in Northern Hemisphere in Arctic Region, Greenland and remaining occurs in the landforms of mountain regions. Glaciers exhibit the different wave like motions that mostly occur internally thus resulting the glacier surge, and waves of velocity. When the glaciers and ice sheet gains a large eroded material through the accumulation of snow above the equilibrium line, the glacier mass is lost through the ablation process and melting water runoff towards the down slope at lowest elevations below the equilibrium line that results the formation of accumulation area, alluvial fan stratification, alluvial plans, arête, askers, braided streams, cirques, crevasses, drumlins, fjords, fracture zones, glacial valleys, ice aprons, and ice bergs. Glaciers are among the oldest and coldest ecosystems on earth that together support the psychrophilic taxa and also impart a requisite water source to shape the downstream ecosystems. But due to global warming and rapid rise in the tropical climate change, melting of tropical glaciers, the fast ablation has contributed the shrinking of global glaciers thus causing the major biological, environmental and human consequences. Subsequently, mountain erosion results the transportation of debris, silt up, floods, and land sliding, raised the global environmental issues. The study includes the core concept of glaciers and melting glaciers effecting the global environments. Keywords: Askers, Craves, Drum line, Fjord, foliations, Gouge, Ice bergs.