Thread by @OGGM_org

1/ Let's use glaciers to learn something about the relationship between average precipitation and temperature today! ❄️🏔️🌡️

The video below is realized with OGGM-Edu's "World Glacier Explorer" app: edu.oggm.org/en/latest/expl…

#education #glaciers #climate #AcademicChatter

2/ Where are the typical locations where glaciers receive most precipitation?

3/ Mainly:
- in the mid-latitudes storm track: New Zealand, Patagiona, western North-America, Norway...
- in the Monsoon influenced eastern Himalayas

These locations receive a lot of precipitation - Patagonia and north-eastern India are probably the wettest places on Earth!

4/ We also see that these "wet" glaciers are found where it is warmest. Why?

We'll come back to this, but from a glacier's perspective, this makes sense: more ice melts where it is warmer 🤒, but glaciers can subsist if this is compensated by a lot of snow accumulation ❄️

5/ Now, let's turn this around and select the glaciers located at the coldest locations on Earth, below -20°C average temperature 🥶 Where are these located?

6/ Mainly:
- the Northern Latitudes: Arctic Canada, North Greenland, Russian Arctic
- high mountains in the Karakoram (Himalayas)

You will find colder locations in continental Antarctica for example, but there are no "mountain glaciers" there, only the ice sheet.

7/ Interestingly, the coldest glaciers are also the ones receiving much less precipitation than the world average! Why?

8/ This is one consequence of the famous
Clausius–Clapeyron relation 🧐

Cold air can hold less water vapour than warm air -> cold regions such as Antarctica and the Arctic are also "deserts", but cold ones. Clausius–Clapeyron also explains why warmer glaciers are also wetter.

9/ That's all for today! We'll try to write more posts of this kind in the upcoming weeks.

If you can't wait that long, visit OGGM-Edu and help us write some more!

edu.oggm.org