What is the difference between a glacier and an ice stream?
An ice stream is a region of fast-moving ice within an ice sheet. It is a type of glacier, a body of ice that moves under its own weight. In Antarctica, the ice streams account for approximately 90% of the sheet’s mass loss per year, and approximately 50% of the mass loss in Greenland.
Why do ice streams move so fast?
Rapid flow of ice streams is caused either by great thickness, or by effective basal lubrication especially from deforming tills. Competing thermal processes act to stabilize and to destabilize the well-lubricated ice streams, and may contribute to their observed short-term variability yet long-term persistence.
What are continental glaciers?
Definition of continental glacier : an ice sheet covering a considerable part of a continent — compare oceanity.
What controls the location of ice streams?
Seven potential controls on ice stream location are identified from the literature: topographic focusing, topographic steps, macro-scale bed roughness, calving margins, subglacial geology, geothermal heat flux and subglacial meltwater routing.
How do ice streams flow?
What is the name of the largest ice shelf and how big is it?
Ross Ice Shelf
The Ross Ice Shelf is the largest ice shelf of Antarctica (as of 2013 an area of roughly 500,809 square kilometres (193,363 sq mi) and about 800 kilometres (500 mi) across: about the size of France).
How does ice flow in a continental glacier?
Continental glacier ice flows from the region where it is thickest toward the edges where it is thinner (Figure 17.5). In the central thickest parts, the ice flows almost vertically down toward the base, while at the edges of the glacier, it flows horizontally out toward the margins.
What causes basal slip?
Basal sliding is the act of a glacier sliding over the bed due to meltwater under the ice acting as a lubricant. Most movement is found to be caused by pressured meltwater or very small water-saturated sediments underneath the glacier.
What is an ice cave called?
A glacier cave is a cave formed within the ice of a glacier. Glacier caves are often called ice caves, but the latter term is properly used to describe bedrock caves that contain year-round ice.