Influence of glacier advance on natural environment in surrounding areas

The impacts of glacier advance on the natural environment in the surrounding areas are as follows:

1. Glaciers on the earth participate in the water cycle.

Glaciers are the main components of the earth's hydrosphere, and the evaporation and melting of glaciers can replenish related rivers. Participate in the whole process of water cycle.

Glaciers can regulate the climate.

Glacier is also one of the main underlying surfaces of the earth's surface, with high reflectivity. The expansion of global glaciers can promote the further cooling of the earth's environment. Glaciers are mostly located in high mountains, and the evaporation is relatively small, which affects the movement of the global air pressure zone.

3. Shape the surface morphology

Glaciation can form unique glacial landforms, such as ice buckets, ice blade ridges, glacial valley fjords, etc.

4, affecting biological migration and soil development.

In the process of glacier advancing, plants along the way will be destroyed, forcing animals to migrate and interrupting the process of soil development. Vegetation soil will gradually re-develop when glaciers retreat.

Glacier distribution:

Glaciers are mainly distributed at the poles of the earth and in the high mountain areas at middle and low latitudes. The global glacier area exceeds160,000 square kilometers, accounting for about 1 1% of the total land area of the earth. Polar glaciers cover almost the whole polar region, which is called continental glaciers, also known as ice sheet glaciers. Glaciers in alpine areas at middle and low latitudes are called mountain glaciers.

97% of the glaciers on the earth and 99% of the ice are distributed in the Antarctic ice sheet and Greenland ice sheet. Mountain glaciers are most developed in the mountainous areas of Central Asia. 37% of the Karakorum Mountains are covered by glaciers. There are six large glaciers in Kashmir, each more than 50 kilometers long.

Glaciers in China belong to mountain glaciers. It was during the ice age when the Quaternary glaciers flourished that the scale of glaciers expanded greatly and did not develop into continental ice sheets. In the past, many experts believed that the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau was covered by a large ice sheet in the Quaternary, even though some foreign experts still held this view. However, after investigation and demonstration, glaciologists in China basically denied this view.