Glaciers are defined as a large mass of perennial ice of atmospheric origin generally moving slowly on land over a long period.<\/p>\n
About 75% of the world\u2019s entire natural freshwater is contained within ice sheets and glaciers. However 97% is not considered to be a water resource as it is inaccessible, located in the Antarctic, Arctic and Greenland ice sheets.<\/p>\n
Land-based glaciers and permanent snow and ice cover approximately 680,000 km2 and are critical to many nations\u2019 water resources.<\/p>\n
Between 1980 and 2001, the thickness of 30 major mountain glaciers decreased by an average of 6 metres.
\nDuring the last century, land-based and mountain glaciers worldwide have been retreating and thinning, and this decline has considerably accelerated during recent years. The mean mass balance decrease that took place during the period 1990\u20131999 was 3 times greater than that of the previous decade.<\/p>\n
Glacial ice often appears blue when it has become very dense. Years of compression gradually make the ice denser over time, forcing out the tiny air pockets between crystals. When glacier ice becomes extremely dense, the ice absorbs all other colours in the spectrum and reflects primarily blue, which is what we see. When glacier ice is white, that usually means that there are many tiny air bubbles still trapped in the ice.<\/p>\n
During the last ice age, when glaciers covered almost one-third of the land the sea level was about 120 meters lower than it is today.<\/p>\n
If all land ice melted, sea level would rise approximately 70 metres worldwide. Almost 90% of an iceberg is below water \u2014 only about 10% emerges above water.<\/p>\n
The Kutiah Glacier in Pakistan holds the record for the fastest glacial surge. In 1953, it raced more than 12 Km in three months, averaging about 112 metres per day.<\/p>\n
Between 1962 and 2000 the Kilimanjaro in Tanzania lost approximately 55% of its glaciers.<\/p>\n
Information from: \nSource: UNESCO Water Portal, August 2006<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Glaciers are defined as a large mass of perennial ice of atmospheric origin generally moving slowly on land over a long period. About 75% of the world\u2019s entire natural freshwater is contained within ice sheets and glaciers. However 97% is not considered to be a water resource as it is inaccessible, located in the Antarctic, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.cawater-info.net\/all_about_water\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.cawater-info.net\/all_about_water\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.cawater-info.net\/all_about_water\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.cawater-info.net\/all_about_water\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.cawater-info.net\/all_about_water\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=239"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.cawater-info.net\/all_about_water\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.cawater-info.net\/all_about_water\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=239"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.cawater-info.net\/all_about_water\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=239"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.cawater-info.net\/all_about_water\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=239"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nthe 2nd United Nations World Water Development Report, ‘Water, a shared responsibility’<\/a>
\nthe ‘International Glossary of Hydrology<\/a>
\nthe United Nations Statistics Division Environmental Glossary<\/a>
\nthe United States Geological Survey (USGS) section \u2018Glaciers and icecaps: Storehouses of freshwater<\/a>
\nUNEP\u2019s GEO Year Book 2003<\/a>
\nUNEP\u2019s Mt. Kilimanjaro Forests section<\/a>
\nthe National Snow and Ice Data Center website <\/a><\/p>\n