GEOL 1301 - Extra credit Lab 1 - Glaciers.docx
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Geology
Date
Jan 9, 2024
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Uploaded by ElderHawkPerson1000
GEOL 1301
Glaciers and Climate – Extra Credit
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.
1
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 sice, glaciers and
ice caps, frozen ground, ice sheets
Describe the similarities or differences between the time scales at which the
following components of the cryosphere change: snow, glaciers, ice sheets.
Snow, glaciers, and ice sheets are all part of the cryosphere, which refers to the
frozen parts of the Earth's surface. They all change over time, but at different rates.
Snow can change within hours or days, while glaciers can take years or decades to
change significantly, and ice sheets can take centuries or even millennia to change.
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 Caps
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 wasn’t updated
Where in North America do you find glaciers and ice caps?
Alaska, western Canada,
Rocky Mountains, and some parts of Greenland
To which latitude does sea ice extend in the northern hemisphere?
35 degrees north
latitude
To which latitude does sea ice extend in the southern hemisphere?
65 degrees
south latitude
Where do you find glaciers close to the equator? Why do you find them there?
Glaciers can be found near the equator in high-altitude areas, such as the Andes
Mountains in South America and Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa because at high
3
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elevations, the temperatures are low enough for snow to accumulate and persist
year-round, eventually forming glaciers.
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?
Ice shelves are thinning because the water is getting warmer, so there
has been more ice loss and rising sea levels
What is happening to sea ice coverage in the Arctic Ocean? Explain the “chain
reaction” that is described in the video.
Sea ice coverage in the Arctic Ocean is
decreasing due to the warming of the planet. As the ice melts, it exposes more of the
dark ocean water, which absorbs more heat and further warms the area, causing
more ice to melt. This creates a chain reaction that accelerates the loss of sea ice.
Where do most icebergs in the North Atlantic come from?
Glaciers and ice sheets
from Greenland
What is currently happening or has recently happened to the Jakobshavn Glacier in
Greenland?
The Jakobshavn Glacier in Greenland has been rapidly melting and
retreating in recent years, with some studies suggesting that it has lost up to 3 miles
of ice since 2015.
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?
-2°C (28.4°F)
What is a “brinicle” (watch also the video “Frozen Planet: Icy Finger of Death” on the
website to answer this question)?
A brinicle is an underwater icicle that forms when
extremely cold and salty water sinks, forming a column of freezing water that
spreads across the ocean floor, encasing everything it touches in ice.
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.
When seawater
freezes to form sea ice, it releases salt, which makes the surrounding seawater
denser and heavier. This denser seawater sinks to the bottom of the ocean and
begins to circulate around the globe.
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?
It continues to accumulate snow and ice on
top, so older sea ice tends to be thicker than younger sea ice.
5
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.
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.
6
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Timescale:
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?
Cryosphere Map:
7