New Zealand’s longest glacier has shrunk in recent decades. Meanwhile, the lake at its terminus has grown.
Published Mar 26, 2017
The looping medial moraines on Tajikistan’s Bivachny glacier offer a clue of periods when it surged rapidly forward.
Published Mar 17, 2015
The retreat of one of Austria’s largest glaciers has stranded some of its tributaries, now classified as separate glaciers.
Published Jul 3, 2015
A magnitude 6.3 earthquake that ravaged Christchurch also broke 30 million tons of ice off the Tasman Glacier.
Published Mar 4, 2011
Although they move slowly, glaciers do move, and this movement alters the ice as it passes over land. Likewise, a moving glacier can carry with it evidence of geologic events it has witnessed. The Bear Glacier in the Kenai Peninsula along the Gulf of Alaska bears multiple clues about its past.
Published Nov 8, 2006
For half a century, it has been the one known Alaskan glacier to withstand the effects of climate change—until now.
Published Nov 5, 2019
Currently 30.2 km long and between 0.5 and 2.5 km wide, Gangotri glacier is one of the largest in the Himalaya. Gangotri has been receding since 1780, although studies show its retreat quickened after 1971.
Published Jun 23, 2004
A glacier in Patagonia with a forgettable name is becoming memorable for the speed at which it is losing ice.
Published Oct 29, 2019
The glacier atop Iceland’s Ok volcano was declared dead in 2014. Satellite images show the latter stages of its decline.
Published Aug 9, 2019
A piedmont-type glacier fans out across a plain in northeast Greenland.
Published Feb 20, 2015
Retreating glaciers have changed how visitors experience Glacier Bay National Park in southeast Alaska.
Published Aug 31, 2020Image of the Day Heat Land Water Snow and Ice Remote Sensing
The fast-changing glacier is threatening a popular hiking area in the western Alps.
Published Oct 2, 2019
Precipitation increases and a layer of debris on the terminus have helped maintain the longest mid-latitude glacier.
Published Jan 5, 2015
Because Indian glaciers have not been studied in detail for the past several decades, assessing their long-term trends has been difficult. More recent studies, however, suggest they are vulnerable to rising temperatures, which increased by 2.2 degrees Celsius (3.96 degrees Fahrenheit) between the 1980s and the new millennium.
Published Mar 14, 2008
The moraines of Malaspina glacier display a dizzying pattern of curves, zigzags, and loops.
Published Oct 11, 2015
Jakobshavn Glacier has grown for the third year in a row, and scientists attribute the change to cool ocean waters.
Published Jun 18, 2019
This pair of images shows the retreat of the Sermersuaq (Humboldt) Glacier in northwestern Greenland between 2000 and 2008. Sermersuaq Glacier is the widest tidewater glacier in the Northern Hemisphere.
Published Dec 16, 2008
In the early summer of 2011, the Medvezhiy Glacier in Tajikistan slid abruptly down its valley, creating a glacial lake.
Published Jul 30, 2011
The Southern Patagonian Icefield of Chile and Argentina hosts several spectacular glaciers—including Grey Glacier located in the Torres del Paine National Park in Chile. This glacier, which in 1996 had a measured total area of 270 square kilometers and a length of 28 kilometers (104 square miles in area, 17 miles long), begins in the Patagonian Andes Mountains to the west and terminates in three distinct lobes into Grey Lake (upper image).
Published Jun 25, 2007
One branch of Alaska’s Columbia Glacier seems to have retreated as far as it can, while the other still has some distance to go.
Published Aug 29, 2019
Local authorities are watching closely after a fast-advancing glacier in northern Pakistan blocked a stream and created a temporary lake.
Published May 15, 2019
Acquired August 27, 2009, this false-color image shows the complex marbled surface of Alaska’s Susitna Glacier.
Published Oct 20, 2010
