What processes are responsible for the rate of glacier erosion across the world, and could it be more than one process? This is what a recent study published in Nature Geoscience hopes to address as a team of researchers investigated the rate of glacier erosion and the landscape’s appearance afterwards. This study has the potential to help researchers, climate scientists, and the public better understand glacier erosion, specifically as climate change continues to ravage the planet.
For the study, the researchers used machine learning models to quantify overall glacier erosion rates using existing data from 181 glacier erosion rates. The goal of the study was to ascertain the environmental, geographic, and climate conditions responsible for glacier erosion. In the end, the researchers found that the speed of the glaciers does not determine glacier erosion rates and is instead primarily determined by latitude, glacier size, and precipitation. In terms of quantifying erosion rates, the researchers estimate 99 percent of the glaciers they examined erode between 0,02 and 2.68 mm per year.
“The conditions that lead to erosion at the base of glaciers are more complicated than we previously understood,” said Dr. Sophie Norris, who is an assistant professor of geography at the University of Victoria and lead author of the study. “Our analysis found that many variables strongly influence erosion rates: temperature, amount of water under the glacier, what kind of rocks are in the area, and how much heat comes from inside the Earth.”
This study comes as climate change continues to influence global environments, including increased temperatures, along with more frequent and severe weather events, specifically tornadoes and hurricanes.
What new discoveries regarding glacier erosion will researchers make in the coming years and decades? Only time will tell, and this is why we science!
As always, keep doing science & keep looking up!
Sources: Nature Geoscience, EurekAlert!
Featured Image: Canadian Arctic Glacier. (Credit: John Gosse, Dalhousie University)