Tidewater glacier

When tidewater glaciers ( glaciers and sea ) glaciers are referred to that end in the sea and produce by the so-called calving icebergs. The term does not include freshwater calving glaciers, these are to be included, should the term " calving glaciers " are used. The amount of play at least for the tidal conceptual classification, however, does not matter. Tidewater glaciers there are at the present time only in the higher latitudes beyond the 45th parallel of latitude. They are available in Alaska, the Canadian Arctic, Greenland, Svalbard, Novaya Zemlya and Antarctica and a few also in Patagonia. In many tidal glaciers are outlet glaciers of the ice cap or ice sheet one.

Calving in the sea represents a significant Ablationprozess, about 70 percent of the water that leave the glaciers and ice sheets around the world to the oceans, in this way reaches the sea. Most tidewater glaciers outside the polar regions end with a steep Eiskliff, standing on the sea floor. But especially in the polar regions of the glacier can also advance far enough into the water that the glacier terminus floats and forms a floating tongue or ice shelf.

In tidal glaciers a cyclical process was observed, which has no direct connection with the climatic conditions in which changes the length of the glacier periodically. Mentioned in this Tidewater Glacier Cylce process plays a role on the one hand, that the Kalbungsgeschwindigkeit increased with increasing water depth, on the other hand, that the glacier reduced by accumulations of moraine on the seabed, the water depth.