What is the difference between icebergs and ice caps

Alpine glaciers can also significantly alter and sculpt the landscape. Glaciers also are home to many micro-organisms and some animals, such as ice worms. Ice caps and glaciers are similar in that they are both large masses of flowing ice.

They also differ in important ways. Ice caps are less than 50, square km in size. Ice caps will also usually flow within a limited range or area. Furthermore, ice caps are technically a type of glacier, while glacier is a term for a broader category that includes ice caps.

Ice caps will also usually be flat or featureless in their topography. Other Glaciers, on the other hand, can be larger than 50, square kilometers. They also tend to be more mobile and expand more than ice caps. They also can be either topographically flat or they can exist on slopes and in rugged terrain. Difference Between Ice Caps and Glaciers. Difference Between Similar Terms and Objects. MLA 8 Strom, Caleb. Name required. Email required. Please note: comment moderation is enabled and may delay your comment.

There is no need to resubmit your comment. Notify me of followup comments via e-mail. Written by : Caleb Strom. Accessed 25 Jun. B9 : Accessed 26 Jun. Scientists explain. User assumes all risk of use, damage, or injury. You agree that we have no liability for any damages. They calve off from tidewater glaciers or ice shelves. They can range in size from small chunks you could fit into a gin and tonic to huge floating behemoths that take decades to melt and that you can land a helicopter on.

Icebergs float in a stable position, with their long axis parallel to the water surface. Elongated icebergs will float on their side. You can draw your own icebergs here:. Ships navigating in polar waters must be careful to avoid icebergs and growlers, which can be hard to see, and will use radar to scan ahead, particularly in poor visibility or in the dark.

See-through ice chunks are made from compressed glacier basal ice and are clean and pure enough to drink. Icebergs can have many colours. Blue icebergs are formed from basal ice from a glacier. The compressed crystals have a blue tint. Green and red icebergs are coloured by algae that lives on the ice.

Stripy icebergs are coloured by basal dirt and rocks, ground up by the glacier and carried away within the glacier ice. Crevasses and other glacier structures may be preserved, giving yet more texture and beauty to the iceberg. Icebergs are studied for a number of reasons. They are tracked with satellite images as they travel around the Southern Ocean. As they drift away from the Antarctic continent, they deliver cold, fresh water, dust and minerals to the surface ocean. The iceberg also may drag its keel on the continental shelf.

Each of these processes has impacts for surface and deep-water animals[6]. The surface phytoplankton increases by up to one third in the wake of a large iceberg.

Tracking icebergs provides information on ocean currents. Scientists can assess whether the number of icebergs is increasing[7, 8]. The input of freshwater may affect surface water currents and even sea ice formation[9]. Sea ice surrounds the polar regions. On average, sea ice covers up to 25 million km 2 , an area 2. Sea ice is frozen ocean water. The sea freezes each winter around Antarctica. Each year, the extent of sea ice varies according to climate variability and long-term climate change.

In the Arctic , sea ice extent is steadily decreasing, with a trend of Year-on-year variations reflect normal variability. Because removal of sea ice changes the reflectivity of the Arctic, a diminishing sea-ice extent amplifies warming.

Sea ice in the Antarctic is currently increasing[9]. This is associated with cooling sea surface temperatures in the Southern Ocean, in particular near the Ross Ice Shelf. Causes of this increasing Antarctic sea ice, which are contrasted with shrinking glaciers and ice shelves and warming deeper ocean current temperatures and atmospheric air temperatures, include changes to the Southern Annual Mode due to intensification and migration of the predominant Southern Ocean Westerlies, and cooler sea surface temperatures as a result of increased glacier and ice-shelf melting[9].

Glasser, N. Kulessa, A. But ice shelves buttress all the glacial ice on land. Think of them like a wall blocking all the ice on land from flowing into the ocean. If you take the ice shelves away, gravity starts pulling all the other ice to the ocean.

Glaciers are comprised of snow and ice, compressed into large masses. Glaciers are a big item when we talk about the world's water supply. Almost 10 percent of the world's land mass is currently covered with glaciers, mostly in places like Greenland and Antarctica. You can think of a glacier as a frozen river, and like rivers, they "flow" downhill, erode the landscape, and move water along in the Earth's water cycle.

Even though you've maybe never seen a glacier or massive extents of ice, they are a big item when we talk about the world's water supply. Almost 10 percent of the world's land mass is currently covered with glaciers and ice caps, mostly in places like Greenland and Antarctica. Glaciers are important features in Earth's water cycle and affect the volume, variability, and water quality of runoff in areas where they occur.

In a way, glaciers are just frozen rivers of ice flowing downhill. Glaciers begin life as snowflakes. When the snowfall in an area far exceeds the melting that occurs during summer, glaciers start to form. The weight of the accumulated snow compresses the fallen snow into ice.

These "rivers" of ice are tremendously heavy, and if they are on land that has a downhill slope the whole ice patch starts to slowly grind its way downhill. These glaciers can vary greatly in size, from a football-field sized patch to an ice patch a hundred miles kilometers long. Glaciers have had a profound effect on the topography lay of the land in some areas, as in the northern U.

You can imagine how a trillion-ton ice cube can rearrange the landscape as it slowly grinds its way overland. In this picture you can see the bowl-shaped valley in a glacial valley in Wyoming where an ancient glacier forced its way through the landscape. Many lakes, such as the Great Lakes, and valleys have been carved out by ancient glaciers. A massive icecap can be found in Greenland, where practically the whole country is covered with ice shouldn't it be called Whiteland?

The ice on Greenland approaches two miles 3. Here's a map of where glaciers and icecaps exist in the world. White areas show glaciers and ice sheets around the world. The white spots in the oceans are islands where glaciers are found. Ice ages and ice coverage of Earth's land masses come and go. The last ice age was about 20, years ago, where ice and glaciers extended southward deep into Europe and over Canada and into the northern United States. The ice has retreated in current times, but ice and glaciers still cover a significant amount of Earth's land masses, especially in Greenland and Antarctica.

There are many long-term weather patterns that the Earth goes through.