Iceberg straight ahead! Oh…. Oh yeah…. Good thing we’re not on the Titanic!
Dial it back, Chirpy. We’re in Iceland, not on a ship that’s about to hit an iceberg and sink! Although, I have to admit I have been thinking of that famous disaster as I walk along Jokulsarlon Lagoon.
Icelandic kids play along the the iceberg-filled lagoon.
It’s true. As I look into the water I see that only 1/3 of the iceberg is poking out of the water. 2/3 of it is under the water. That’s A LOT of water frozen solid!
Many gallons of water are captured in the ice of an iceberg.
That got us thinking: Where did these icebergs come from? Where are they going? What happens when the ice melts? We’d have to go EXPLORING (Chirpy’s favorite word) to find out!
Icebergs are broken off bits of glacier floating in water. Some of them are VERY BIG.
It became clear that the icebergs were coming from the glacier on the other side of the lagoon. The glacier is the large field of ice on the land in the background of the picture above. Can you see it? It’s very thick – LOTS of ice – so it’s there all year ’round, even now in the summertime. Part of the glacier melts every summer. As it melts from the bottom, the sheet of ice slides downhill.
Icebergs float in the lagoon.
Parts of the glacier break off and slide into the lagoon. When the ice is floating it’s called an iceberg. We wanted a closer look, so we hopped into a boat to get to the other side of the lagoon.
We had to be careful not to run into the floating ice as we crossed the lagoon in a small inflatable boat.
The view from the boat was incredibly beautiful in the evening.
The wind blowing off the ice was freezing cold, but we didn’t mind because it was all so fascinating and so beautiful.
We came close to the edge of the glacier that’s sliding into the lagoon.
Be careful! Large blocks of ice break off from the glacier and become icebergs.
The lagoon opens into the Atlantic Ocean, so eventually the icebergs float out into the ocean. As they float, they melt. The water, which was once ice on land, now becomes part of the liquid water in the ocean. I’m sure you can see the cause and effect relationship here: land ice into the ocean → more water in the ocean.
Here’s the really important part….
The more water that’s added to the ocean, the higher the water level on land. This is called sea level rise.
In the video below, you’ll see an iceberg that floated out of the Jokulsarlon Lagoon and into the ocean. Now it’s melting rapidly.
The extra water has to go somewhere. Right? When you add ice or water to an already-full glass of water, what happens? The water level gets higher and it overflows the glass! Same with the ocean. When you add more ice and water, the water level gets higher and it overflows onto land.
This isn’t a problem if no one is living near the ocean, but if people are living on the coast (where the land meets the ocean), then that becomes a BIG problem.
In the video below, the animation shows years passing on the right, and what will happen if sea level keeps rising on the left.
As you can see, it’s happening slowly, over the years, but we need to pay attention to sea level rise now, so we can help slow it down. Let’s get to the nitty gritty….
What’s causing the land ice to melt and slide into the ocean? GLOBAL WARMING. We all know that warmer temperature causes ice to melt. That’s a no brainer. As our planet gets warmer, more and more land ice ends up in the ocean. Let’s work together to do something about it.
Click here to find out more about global warming, and what we can do to slow it down and help our planet.
This is interesting, and it is a big deal! Alot of us live close to the Hudson River, which is connected to the ocean. If we don’t take action, all of our houses could get flooded.
I never knew how big an icebreg could get
How do the icebergs float? I know that they have some air bubbles but, how does that tiny stuff make it float?
I know that the icebergs mostly floats around but since we are polluting the icebergs melt which causes higher sea levels and some people didn’t know this is happening. Now It think we can recycle more which slows pollution and then slows global warming and that stops higher sea levels.
I think that a way we can help is that stop pollution! 🙁
What I thought was intresting was that 1/3 of the ice burg is in the water and 2/3 is above the water that is a big ice burg!! Also I dont think it is good that we are not paying antion to globel warming!! It is not good people living by the ocean because there house got flooded. In the exeperment we did my house was already was a boot house. So it was not really a problem for me. But if it was not a bout house it would get flooded.
WoW those were good facts about sea level rise. I learned a lot of things. one thing I learned that I didnt know is that when icebergs slides off the glacier and goes into the water it melts which causes sea level rise.
One way that you could slow down global warming and help prevent glaciers and icebergs from melting is by going to places by bike. Once I went to my friends house and she lives by a beach and her town was so small that we could bike everywhere. For example, she bikes to school, also one day just me and her went for breakfast in town, we just biked there! This helps reduce global warming because less gas from cars goes into the air.
I think that it is so interesting how only 1/3 of the ice burg shows. I think that when the water starts to get really warm that we might not even know that the other part of th ice burg will melt.
And when that starts to happen sea level rises and that is not good
To prevent homes from being destroyed they should build homes
more away from the ocean instead of having them right by the
ocean.
One way that you could slow down global warming and help prevent glaciers and icebergs from melting is by using solar panels. If you got solar panels in your home then you would not be burning so much coal. What would be even better, is if electric power plants got solar panels. Then instead of burning coal you would be getting all your power from a field of solar panels.
I thought it was amazing when you see huge glaciers one day and if you go back like a few months after you can see that pieces have fallen off and turned into icebergs.
I think it is cool how large chunks of ice fall into rivers and oceans, but I never knew thats how ice burgs are made that way.
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I made a connection to the model because it showed that the melting ice is causing sea levels to rise.
The sea level is rising one way i can explain that is because the ice from land is melting into the ocean so all the melted ice water gets into the ocean and that gives more water to the ocean then that rises the sea level.
I thought that it was so amazing that when the chunk of ice collapses into the ocean the ice melts at the same time too!! I never knew that if you have water and ice in a glass the level of water would rise just like the ocean even with ice!! I have learned a lot from these photos and videos!!
I think that people who live on the coasts should pay very close attention to global warming because of all the ice that is melting.The ice that melts gets dumped into the ocean and overflows the ocean!The people that live on coasts should be concerned because they’re near the ocean and their property could be ruined.That’s why people on the coasts of oceans should care about Global warming.
I think it’s foolish to ignore Global Warming, we should all be chipping in to help slow it down. Or you could just ignore Global Warming and watch our land flood, but that wouldn’t be such a good option.
Now I understand that the global warming is heating the ice glaciers and melting it that show sea level is rising
What I thought was interesting was how glaciers fall off the mountain and turn into icebergs. Also, I thought that the water in the ocean was once ice on land was fascinating.
I also thought that was interesting too!!
I think this is very dangerous that we are not really paying attention to global warming and the ice melting and sea level rising because even though its just a little bit of all of this every year what will happen in 5000 years.We all dont no and people that are our age in 5000 years will be in danger if we dont stop now.
We can not reverse global warming. If the ice is already melting, we can’t stop it even if we slow down global warming. All we can do is stop polluting and slow down global warming. The ice will continue to melt at the constant rate(for every year) or melt faster. We will have to slow down global warming.
It must have been really interesting and cool to see a ice burg melt in person. The good part about it is that you know very much about ice burgs making it so much easier to understand what is happening as the ice burg melts away. I think that humans should try to slow down global warming so that not as many houses get flooded and so not as much ice melts.
Oh my gosh I was thinking that too!!
With icebergs melting so fast we can’t stop them from melting, but we can try to slow Global Warming so the icebergs can’t melt any faster.
I thought it was really interesting that large blocks of ice fall off glaciers and then turn into icebergs.
I thought it was interesting how large chunks of ice fall of of glaciers and turn into ice burgs, I didn’t know that this was how ice burgs are made.
I agree too!!