"Continental glacier" redirects here. For the glacier located in Wyoming, see Continental Glacier.
One of Earth's two ice sheets: The Antarctic ice sheet covers about 98% of the Antarctic continent and is the largest single mass of ice on Earth. It has an average thickness of over 2 kilometers.[1]
In glaciology, an ice sheet, also known as a continental glacier,[2] is a mass of glacial ice that covers surrounding terrain and is greater than 50,000 km2 (19,000 sq mi).[3] The only current ice sheets are the Antarctic ice sheet and the Greenland ice sheet. Ice sheets are bigger than ice shelves or alpine glaciers. Masses of ice covering less than 50,000 km2 are termed an ice cap. An ice cap will typically feed a series of glaciers around its periphery.
Although the surface is cold, the base of an ice sheet is generally warmer due to geothermal heat. In places, melting occurs and the melt-water lubricates the ice sheet so that it flows more rapidly. This process produces fast-flowing channels in the ice sheet — these are ice streams.
In previous geologic time spans (glacial periods) there were other ice sheets. During the Last Glacial Period at Last Glacial Maximum, the Laurentide Ice Sheet covered much of North America. In the same period, the Weichselian ice sheet covered Northern Europe and the Patagonian Ice Sheet covered southern South America.
^"Ice Sheets". National Science Foundation.
^American Meteorological Society, Glossary of Meteorology Archived 2012-06-23 at the Wayback Machine
^"Glossary of Important Terms in Glacial Geology". Archived from the original on 2006-08-29. Retrieved 2006-08-22.
current icesheets are the Antarctic icesheet and the Greenland icesheet. Icesheets are bigger than ice shelves or alpine glaciers. Masses of ice covering...
The Laurentide IceSheet was a massive sheet of ice that covered millions of square miles, including most of Canada and a large portion of the Northern...
The Greenland icesheet is an icesheet which forms the second largest body of ice in the world. It is an average of 1.67 km (1.0 mi) thick, and over 3 km...
The Antarctic icesheet is a continental glacier covering 98% of the Antarctic continent, with an area of 14 million square kilometres (5.4 million square...
The Cordilleran icesheet was a major icesheet that periodically covered large parts of North America during glacial periods over the last ~2.6 million...
presence or expansion of continental and polar icesheets and alpine glaciers. Earth's climate alternates between ice ages, and greenhouse periods during which...
referred to as icesheets. The composition of the ice will vary. For example, Earth's polar caps are mainly water ice, whereas Mars's polar ice caps are a...
period of the North American icesheet complex, peaking more than 20,000 years ago. This advance included the Cordilleran IceSheet, which nucleated in the...
to the Würm glaciation. It was characterized by a large icesheet (the Fenno-Scandian icesheet) that spread out from the Scandinavian Mountains and extended...
Patagonian IceSheet was a large elongated and narrow icesheet centered in the southern Andes that existed during the Llanquihue glaciation. The icesheet covered...
glacier or icesheet melts, it loses mass. This reduces its gravitational pull. In some places near current and former glaciers and icesheets, this has...
million years ago (Mya) is based on the formation of the Arctic ice cap. The Antarctic icesheet began to form earlier, at about 34 Mya, in the mid-Cenozoic...
where it can aggregate from snow to form glaciers and icesheets. As snowflakes and hail, ice is a common form of precipitation, and it may also be deposited...
the parts of the edifice that are buried underneath the West Antarctic IceSheet are probably even larger. It is part of the West Antarctic Rift System...
27806°W / -78.73417; -133.27806 The West Antarctic IceSheet (WAIS) is the segment of the continental icesheet that covers West Antarctica, the portion of Antarctica...
thinner sea ice and lake ice that form on the surface of bodies of water. On Earth, 99% of glacial ice is contained within vast icesheets (also known...
Lib Google Sheets, spreadsheet editor by Google Sheet of stamps, a unit of stamps as printed Sheet or plate glass, a type of glass Icesheet, a mass of...
where water is in solid form, including sea ice, lake ice, river ice, snow cover, glaciers, ice caps, icesheets, and frozen ground (which includes permafrost)...
000 km2 (5,500,000 sq mi). Most of Antarctica is covered by the Antarctic icesheet, with an average thickness of 1.9 km (1.2 mi). Antarctica is, on average...
continent, and, after being compressed, becomes the glacier ice that makes up the icesheet. Weather fronts rarely penetrate far into the continent, because...
Antarctic and Greenland icesheets have survived, while other sheets formed during glacial periods, such as the Laurentide IceSheet, have completely melted...
populated. Three-quarters of Greenland is covered by the only permanent icesheet outside Antarctica. With a population of 56,583 (2022), Greenland is the...
can blow snow onto the icesheets from nearby tundras. Icesheets are often miles thick. Much of the land located under icesheets is actually below sea...
release of meltwater into the oceans from the collapse of continental icesheets. Meltwater pulse 1A occurred in a period of rising sea level and rapid...
during the Last Glacial Period where icesheets were at their greatest extent 26,000 and 20,000 years ago. Icesheets covered much of Northern North America...
part of the Greenland Ice Sheet Project 2 and Greenland Icecore Project, estimated that the Younger Dryas started about 12,800 ice (calibrated) years BP....
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