what might global warming affect nartural glaciers?

Answer 1

If it weren't for glaciers melting, Canada and Scandinavia would be under a mile and a half thick sheet of ice.

Glaciers grow and they melt. They never stay the same. This has been going on since the start of time, long before man, and it will occur long after man as well.

Answer 2

Glaciers are one of the best indicators of the global climate as they're very sensitive to changes in temp. A change of just 1°C can cause a glacier to retreat or advance by several hundred metres. They're effectively nature's thermometer.

18,000 years ago much of the northern hemisphere was covered by glaciers, over a period of 7,500 years they retreated rapidly. For the next 10,000 years they remained more or less as they were but in recent decades glaciers around the world have been retreating.

Some are retreating by an amazing 40m per day, thousands have melted completely. In Glacier National Park there used to be over 150 glaciers, today there are just 4.

Glacial meltwater is the source for many of the world greatest rivers including the Euphrates, Indus, Brahmaputra and Yangtze. Over 2 billion people around the world rely on water from rivers that are fed by glacial meltwater. As the glaciers disappear water sources dry up leading to crop failure and the effects of drought.

There are some high altitude glaciers that are expanding. This is because global warming has caused water from the seas and oceans to evapourate more rapidly leading to increased precipitation. In cold regions this falls as snow and in some places such as the Himalayas and Antarctica it's so cold that the snow never melts, it just builds up over thousands of years, eventually making it's way down the mountain or off the ice cap as glacial ice.

I do a lot of mountain climbing and over the years have watched as glaciers have retreated further and further. There are valleys that took us 3 days to ascend because they were filled with dangerous glaciers, today it's just bare rock and dirt.

Answer 3

Well luckily for us it has only affected the artificial glaciers so far, but when it affects the natural ones, look out. Natural glaciers can get very cranky.

Answer 4

you will have to hurry with that question many Natural Glaziers (is there another kind ,do we have artificial,ones ?)
are already melting .

These glaziers were feeding rivers all year round ,now they are melting ,the water quickly running into the river and sea .

Causing these rivers to have much less water or they may even dry up part of the time later on .

And so affect agriculture and communities water supplies in a more then critical way in the very near future & affecting food prices .