GEOL 1301 - Lab 09 - Glaciers
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University of Texas, Arlington *
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1301
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Geology
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Feb 20, 2024
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GEOL 1301 Name: Jonathan Venegas Glaciers and Climate Lab
a
Learning and Lab objectives
: This lab activity follows an online lab made available
on the Science Education Resource Center at Carleton College website
(
http://serc.carleton.edu/eslabs/index.html
). The lab has been developed with support from the National Science Foundation
(NSF), the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the National Association of
Geoscience Teachers (NAGT), and the Technical Education Research Center
(TERC). Please upload your completed lab on Canvas.
Go to the following website:
http://serc.carleton.edu/eslabs/cryosphere/lab_overviews.html
On the left side of this website, you find a navigation panel to different parts of the
lab. You will answer questions from Labs 1A, 1C, 2A, 2B, and 4A for this exercise,
but feel free to explore all parts of the “Climate and Cryosphere” section.
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Lab 1A: Getting to Know the Cryosphere
Study the image below, which you also find on the website of Lab 1 (
http://serc.carleton.edu/eslabs/cryosphere/lab1.html
), and read through the introduction to Lab 1 on that website.
Name all the parts of the cryosphere.
Snow, river and lake ice, sea ice, glaciers, and ice caps, frozen ground, ice sheets, ice shelves, and ice sheet margins.
Describe the similarities or differences between the time scales at which the following components of the cryosphere change: snow, glaciers, and ice sheets.
Snow lasts from days to months, glaciers last from months to centuries, and ice sheets from days to millenniums. There is some overlapping at times. 2
Cut out and tape together the cryosphere map that is found at the end of this lab document (you can also look for an image of what the completed “globe” should look
like on the Lab 1A website, http://serc.carleton.edu/eslabs/cryosphere/1a.html). This
globe shows the distributions of snow, ice, etc. averaged over several decades. Answer the following questions (some of which you also find on that same website):
What parts of the cryosphere are only
found near the poles?
Ice sheets only On December 26, 2000, there were reports of ten to twenty inches of snow across the Texas panhandle, including nearly twenty inches in the city of Amarillo. Why doesn't the map show snow in Texas?
The map shows average snow cover, not individual snow events.
Where in North America do you find glaciers and ice caps?
Alaska and can be found in Washington Oregon, California, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, and Nevada.
To which latitude does sea ice extend in the northern hemisphere?
45 degrees north
To which latitude does sea ice extend in the southern hemisphere?
55 degrees south
Where do you find glaciers close to the equator? Why do you find them there?
Andes and Alps because of the high altitude
3
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Lab 1C: The Changing Cryosphere
Watch the satellite data-based NASA video “Tour of the Cryosphere” on the website for Lab 1C (http://serc.carleton.edu/eslabs/cryosphere/1c.html), then answer the following questions.
What is happening or has happened in the recent past to the ice shelves of Antarctica?
They have shrunk significantly, adding up to about 8.3 million tons
What is happening to sea ice coverage in the Arctic Ocean? Explain the “chain reaction” that is described in the video.
Ice is melting at an alarming rate which could cause the open ocean to warm up leading to more ice melting.
Where do most icebergs in the North Atlantic come from?
Glaciers in west Greenland
What is currently happening or has recently happened to the Jakobshavn Glacier in Greenland?
The glacier flow rate has been increasing.
4
Lab 2A: Sea Ice and Ocean Currents
Go to the website for Lab 2A (http://serc.carleton.edu/eslabs/cryosphere/2a.html), then answer the following questions.
At what temperature does ocean water freeze?
About 28.4 degrees Fahrenheit
What is a “brinicle” (watch the video “Frozen Planet: Icy Finger of Death” on the website to answer this question)?
Long tapering vertical tubes of ice formed in the sea around a plume of very cold seawater produced by developing ice sheets.
Go to the “Ocean Circulation” animation on the website, use the temperature slides, and describe what happens to the ocean water as sea ice forms.
The ocean gets colder when sea ice forms and currents change.
5
Lab 2B: Sea Ice Thickness
Go to the website for Lab 2B (http://serc.carleton.edu/eslabs/cryosphere/2b.html), then answer the following questions.
How is sea ice thickness related to age?
There is a strong correlation, the longer the ice stacks the thicker it becomes.
Study the figure below (which is also shown on the website), which shows sea ice coverage and thickness in the Arctic Ocean as an average for February for the years
1985-2000 on the left and for February 2008 on the right. Describe the differences between the two images, and explain what they mean.
The one on the left has more age snow than the one on the right. The earth is getting warmer.
6
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Lab 4A: Glacial Ages
Go to the website for Lab 4A (http://serc.carleton.edu/eslabs/cryosphere/4a.html), then answer the following questions.
From the image below (which you also find on the website), infer the typical time scale on which glacial periods occurred during the past 1 million years.
Timescale:
100,000 years
Read the section about Milankovitch Cycles. What are the three aspects of the Earth’s orbit that change over time, and at what time scales are they changing?
Eccentricity- 100,000-400,000 years
Obliquity- 41,000 years
Precession- 26,000 years
7
Cryosphere Map:
8