🧊 Glaciers

What you’ll learn

1. Ice That FlowsUnderstand what defines a glacier and how solid ice can flow.A glacier is ice so thick its own weight makes it deform and flow downhill. It's not frozen scenery but a moving river of ice, and that motion is what makes it powerful.
2. The Glacier's BudgetExplain accumulation, ablation, mass balance, and the equilibrium line.A glacier lives or dies by its mass balance: snow gained versus ice lost. The equilibrium line divides the two zones, and watching it tells us exactly how a glacier is faring.
3. Sculptors of the LandIdentify the major landforms glaciers carve and deposit.Glaciers are the planet's great sculptors. Grinding rock as they flow, they carve U-shaped valleys, cirques, fjords, and lakes, and dump debris into moraines, leaving signatures that outlast the ice by millennia.
4. The Great Ice AgesUnderstand the Pleistocene ice ages and what drives glacial cycles.Earth has cycled through ice ages driven by subtle wobbles in its orbit. The last one ended just 11,700 years ago, and the evidence, from scoured land to drowned coasts, is everywhere if you know how to read it.
5. Glaciers and the Water We DrinkExplain how glaciers regulate water supply for people and ecosystems.Glaciers act as natural water towers, storing winter snow and releasing it in the dry season when rivers would otherwise run low. As they shrink, the buffer they provide to billions of people is shrinking too.
6. The Great RetreatExamine the global retreat of glaciers and how we measure it.Glaciers worldwide are retreating, many faster than at any time on record. Repeat photography, satellites, and field measurements all tell the same story: the ice is leaving, and the evidence is undeniable.
7. Life on the IceDiscover the surprising biology and chemistry of glacial environments.Glaciers are not lifeless. Ice worms, snow algae, and tiny meltwater pools called cryoconite holes host whole communities. Understanding this hidden biology even helps the search for life on icy worlds beyond Earth.
8. The Sea Remembers the IceConnect glacier and ice sheet loss to sea level rise and the climate future.Melting land ice raises sea level, and the great ice sheets hold enough to reshape every coastline on Earth. Understanding what's locked up in the ice, and how fast it could leave, is one of the defining questions of our time.

Questions this course answers

Grounded in trusted sources

• U.S. Geological Survey (USGS)
• National Park Service (NPS)
• National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC)

Every Wunder lesson is built from real, reputable sources — never invented.

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