GLACIAL LANDSCAPES Essays - Glaciology, Physical Geography

GLACIAL LANDSCAPES Author's Name Institutional Affiliation Glaciers are known to create large glacial landscapes in the icy areas and have been existent since time memorial. However, with the rising rate of pollution and other human activities, the landscapes have begun to melt away gradually leaving bare land or water bodies. These glacial melting activities have adverse effects on both animals and plant life forms more so that existence in the vicinity of these glacial landscapes. As they melt they destroy a lot of plants putting them underwater and the animals within there being forced to flee to save their lives. In some parts of Iceland the animals have recently faced this calamity and even they have lost some of their fishing grounds, other animals have even starved to death for the water has engulfed their food. As the glaciers melt away, it increases the global warming effect because these glaciers defect 80% of the sun's heat back into space hence reducing the amount of the sun falling on the earth this potential melting will, therefore, increase the global warming. Also, the sea level rises generally around the world. Currently, the world sea level is expected to rise by 60-70cm by the year 2100. The Alpine regions and Arctic and Antarctic have brought about a lot of flooding in coastal regions and even some islands that are bordering the area may be submerged due to the high amounts of water levels, caused by glaciers melting. In the long run, the glacial landscapes melting will cause all other organisms living adjacent to it to either flee or perish due to the water bodies creation, also some glaciers are melting bringing about water acidification which can cause great animal and plant deaths because the water encompasses the other water bodies causing contamination (Luneva, Harle Aksenov 2017, April).. References Luneva, M., Holt, J., Harle, J., Aksenov, Y. (2017, April). Multi-decadal effects of tides and Greenland glacial melting runoff on the ice, mixing and cross-shelf exchange in the Arctic Ocean. In EGU General Assembly Conference Abstracts (Vol. 19, p. 17061).