why are glaciers blue

[little_sun]

They are actually grey, mostly, but the ice is really turning blue... We found an explanation in the Museum of Glaciers in Norway.

This is a glacier Boyabree (or Boyabreen)

Comments

[sometimeselkie]

The really tragic things about glaciers are how fast they're disappearing. I can't remember what condition the Columbian Ice Fields were in when I last saw them, but I went up Mt, Titlis in the Swiss Alps and learned that the glacier was receding so fast that they were going to put a reflective blanket over it to shield it from the sun! That glacier was really grey, too. It reminded me of when you're wandering around in May and you find a pile of hard-packed stones and dirt, and you kick the stones apart you find there's still snow and ice inside somehow and the grime has been shielding it from melting.

I've wanted to go to Patagonia for some time now, but I don't think there's many glaciers to go climbing around on anymore. The remaining ones are probably unsafe.

[little_sun]

You can climb on glaciers in Norway. They make even some 2 hours family trips (with a guide, of course). It felt unfair to me, however, to walk on the ice and further help to erase him by iron stick on your shoes.
Some glaciers can get bigger even nowadays, you need cold summers and milder winters with a lot of snow.

[sometimeselkie]

That's true. Not all glaciers are shrinking. I think I'm still depressed from watching An Inconvenient Truth.

If I felt like climbing on ice, I think I'd do frozen waterfalls. I'm sure I'd end up kicking myself in the calf with my ice spikes, though. Maybe it's best if I stick to skating.

[little_sun]

Frozen waterfalls? Sounds great but dangerous. What if it falls down? Just this week an avalanche burried a group of climbers in the Alps in Europe. In august!

[bigvividworld]

Glaciers are blue because they are cold, and that makes them sad. At least... that's what I had always assumed.

But maybe the scientists in Norway are right.

[little_sun]

Sad glacier
cries cold tears
over the cruel world
of sunshine.