Ice sheets and glaciers are like giant ice blocks that sit on land, and when they melt, it's like a big snowman getting warm and turning into puddles.
Ice sheets are the biggest ones, imagine a blanket of ice so thick it covers whole continents. Greenland and Antarctica have them! Glaciers are smaller, like long rivers of ice that move slowly down mountains or valleys.
What happens when they melt?
When the weather gets warmer, these big ice blocks start to shrink. It's like leaving an ice cube in the sun, it melts into water. The same thing happens with ice sheets and glaciers, but on a much bigger scale!
This melting adds more water to oceans, which can make sea levels rise. Imagine if your bathtub started getting fuller because someone was turning on the tap, that's what's happening to Earth’s oceans.
Sometimes, when glaciers melt, they also send big chunks of ice into the sea. These are like giant icebergs drifting away from the shore!
So, ice sheet and glacier melting is just a fancy way of saying: big ice blocks are getting smaller and turning into water, and that's making oceans bigger.
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See also
- Why Do Oceans Glitter Like Diamonds Under the Sun?
- What are adaptive structures?
- What causes volcanoes to erupt and what are the different types?
- What is The Earth like a warm blanket?
- What causes greenwashing and how is it regulated globally?