I am going to go ahead and admit it: I have been using the word “glacier” wrong for much of my life. It wasn’t until I was looking at one straight in its eyes that I could fully appreciate what it was, what it means for me and the Earth, and the awesome power that lives inside a few million pounds of frozen water.
If you are like me, when you were young and heard or said the word, “glacier,” you may have actually been thinking of an iceberg, a floating mass of ice that moves in the ocean. The word glacier or glacial is used to describe plenty of products that I use in my life…many of them related to chewing gum, breath mints, toothpaste or frozen drinks. All of these get the cold part right, but nothing more.
The scientific definition of a glacier, is far from the picture of a happy bit of floating ice that the Coca-Cola polar bear rides on during a holiday commercial or that brought down Leonardo di Caprio during his trip on the Titanic. Glaciers are are huge masses of ice and snow that move slowly down a path toward the sea in the polar regions of the planet. They nestle themselves into huge canyons that they help carve and craft as gravity moves them along their heavy path. When the glaciers reach a certain point, they fall into the sea, dropping their massive walls into the water.
I learned this correct definition of “glacier” in the science classes I took during high school and college. I have even seen images of glaciers on dozens of National Geographic, Discovery or Nature programs about geography and our world. But I had to go all the way to the Arctic to figure out that a glacier’s power is its size. It is the sheer scale of these frozen forces of nature that remind you that we are guests here on Planet Earth. As our expedition’s boat pulled up the Tuna Glacier in the northern region of Svalbard, I was amazed how small this massive wall of ice made me feel. These square miles of ice are a living thing that puts anything we humans do look tiny. And they’ve been doing it for millions of years.
And while in English we talk about things happening at a “glacial pace” or compare to something sluggish to glaciers, the irony of course is that these things are moving and melting faster than each of us realizes. I had the chance to talk about the pace that glaciers are melting with one of the world’s leading glaciologist. (Yes, this title exists, and these guys are fascinating. Read here a write-up from one of my conversations with them for a work post). While glaciers may always be associated with something slow, their pace is something that should cause all of us a lot of concern.
My first up-close-and-personal meeting with a glacier was a one-way conversation that I gladly accept. I had nothing to teach, but tons to learn, by the awesome forces of nature that they represent. What I am learning about glaciers makes me grateful for this planet, more curious about what makes it tick, and more aware of what I need to do to help take care of it.