Ice comes in different forms: ice sheets, glaciers, sea ice, and frozen ground. It holds key information that can help us know about what the climate was like in the past and predict how it will change in the future. It preserves materials and chemicals that can be excavated and analyzed in labs, to provide us instrumental information.
One of the key areas where glaciologists, studying ice and glaciers, work is in the Earth’s South Pole and North Pole, where they keep track of the movements of the ice, as well as dig deep using special equipment to retrieve the needed samples for analysis. Glaciers and ice sheets are quite large formations and can vary in thickness from one-hundred meters to over one-thousand meters. This ice developed over centuries and each year a layer is added on top, creating massive glaciers that can be seen on mountains.
One of the earlier pioneers of glaciology is Julius von Haast; born in Germany, in 1822, and joined the University of the Rhine to study geology and minerology, but he did not graduate. He ended up travelling to New Zealand, which was still a colony at the time, in order to investigate the prospects of immigration for German colonials. While this was the purpose of his travels, once he arrived he ended up joining a scientific expedition on which he carried out a topographical and geological survey of the West Coast in 1859.
Haast went on many such explorations in New Zealand, including one to the glacier region near Mt. Cook, which inspired his book The Geology of Canterbury and Westland (1879). He was also great at sketching glaciers and mountain regions so that later on they have been used to compare and contrast what the glaciers look like now to how they used to look like in the 19th century. Haast recognized and studied the effects of past glaciation, made various observations on glaciers, and his geological studies were the basis for later work, laying the foundation for glaciology as a scientific field.
If we compare the sketches Haast took and the present state of the glaciers, differences are strongly apparent. Some of the glaciers that are melting and retreating in New Zealand have been at a previous point one of the main attractions for tourists visiting the country. Unfortunately, as of 2016, tour operators have limited tour groups due to the higher risk of trekking the glaciers in their current conditions. No longer can people approach the glacier on foot; they actually need to be flown in, and in the future it might become completely off limits due to how dangerous it is becoming.
The melting and retreat of glaciers has its consequences; the warmer the climate gets due to global warming, the faster the glaciers melt, leading to rising sea levels. Of course, this means that many low-lying lands will be at risk of being flooded and some places might even become completely submerged under water. The problem is when melted fresh water enters the ocean; while it not only increases sea levels, but it also alters the ocean water’s composition. Salty sea water is heavier than fresh water, which means that salty sea water will be pushed down. This would cause the currents of the ocean to change, and consequently affect the surrounding climate, as well as the existing ecosystem.
Whilst these changes occur in water, the retreating white icy masses have another negative effect. The white surface of glaciers reflects the Sun rays, which helps regulate our climate, keeping it mild. However, as the ice melts, the darker surface on which it rested is exposed and these tend to absorb and release more heat, adding to the whole warming conundrum. This is why glaciology is so important; because through this field, we can gain a tangible understanding of our changing climate, and perhaps key in on important information that might help us better adapt to it.
References
earthweb.ess.washington.edu
extremeicesurvey.org
glacierhub.org
teara.govt.nz