Meltwater - Rapid Changes

Rapid Changes

Meltwater can be an indication of abrupt climate change. An instance of a large meltwater body is the case of the region of a tributary of Bindschadler Ice Stream, West Antarctica where rapid vertical motion of the ice sheet surface has suggested shifting of a subglacial water body.

It can also destabilize glacial lakes leading to sudden floods, and destabilize snowpack causing avalanches. Dammed glacial meltwater from a moraine-dammed lake that is released suddenly can resulted in the floods that created the granite chasms in Purgatory Chasm State Reservation.

Read more about this topic:  Meltwater

Famous quotes containing the word rapid:

    “Five o’clock tea” is a phrase our “rude forefathers,” even of the last generation, would scarcely have understood, so completely is it a thing of to-day; and yet, so rapid is the March of the Mind, it has already risen into a national institution, and rivals, in its universal application to all ranks and ages, and as a specific for “all the ills that flesh is heir to,” the glorious Magna Charta.
    Lewis Carroll [Charles Lutwidge Dodgson] (1832–1898)

    The art of watching has become mere skill at rapid apperception and understanding of continuously changing visual images. The younger generation has acquired this cinematic perception to an amazing degree.
    Johan Huizinga (1872–1945)