Glaciers are nature's slow-moving sculptors, reshaping our planet in ways we can now measure with unprecedented precision. An international team of researchers used machine learning to study 85 percent of the world's modern glaciers and found that most are grinding away at the Earth at a rate of 0.02 to 2.68 millimeters per year - about the thickness of a credit card.
A glacier in the Canadian Arctic. Image credit: John Goss, Dalhousie University
Glaciers have carved many of Canada's iconic landscapes, from carving the deep canyons of Banff, to crushing Ontario's landscape, to leaving behind the fertile soil of the prairies. Glaciers continue to reshape the Earth's surface, but how quickly does this transformation happen?
In a study published August 7 in the journal Nature Geoscience, University of Victoria (UVic) geographer Sophie Norris and an international team of researchers conducted the most detailed assessment to date of the rate at which glaciers are eroding land. Their study also provides the first estimate of how quickly more than 180,000 glaciers around the world will erode in the coming years.
The team used machine learning technology to conduct a global analysis and predict the erosion rate of 85% of modern glaciers. The results showed that 99% of the glaciers eroded at an annual rate between 0.02 and 2.68 millimeters (about the thickness of a credit card).
"The conditions that cause erosion at the base of a glacier are much more complex than we previously understood," Norris said. "Our analysis found that many variables have a strong influence on the rate of erosion: temperature, the amount of water under the glacier, the type of rock in the area, and heat from the Earth's interior."
"Given the extreme difficulty of measuring glacial erosion in active glacial environments, this study provides us with estimates of this process in remote areas around the world," said John Goss of Dalhousie University.
Understanding the causes of subglacial erosion is critical for managing landscapes, planning for long-term nuclear waste storage, and tracking how sediment and nutrients move around the globe.
Compiled from /scitechdaily