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Glaciers
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The water cycle describes movement of water; but in fact,more water is stored in glaciers at any one time than is actually moving through the cycle.
The vast majority (nearly 90 percent) of Earth's ice mass is in Antarctica, while the Greenland ice cap contains 10 percent of the total global ice-mass.
In many places, glaciers on Greenland reach to the sea, and one estimate is that as much as 125 cubic miles of ice "calves" into the ocean each year... one of Greenland's contributions to the global water cycle.
Ocean-bound icebergs travel with the currents, melting along the way. Some icebergs have been seen, in much smaller form, as far south as the island of Bermuda.
Ice and Glaciers Come and Go
On a global scale, the climate is always changing, although usually not at a rate fast enough for you to notice.
There have been many warm periods, such as when the dinosaurs lived (about 100 million years ago) and many cold periods, such as the last ice age of about 20,000 years ago.
During the last ice age much of the northern hemisphere was covered in ice and glaciers covered nearly all of Canada, much of northern Asia and Europe, and extended well into the United States.
Some Glacier and Ice Cap Facts
You may be wondering how glaciers affect you in Blanco, Texas.
If they keep on melting at the present rate, we may have ocean-front property by the year 2025 :-) .
