The impact of glacial retreat on modern landscapes

Norway’s hydropower relies on glacier-fed rivers, but retreating glaciers, like Folgefonna, reduce consistent meltwater flow, lowering energy output, per a 2021 energy report.

Newly exposed land from retreating Antarctic glaciers, like the Pine Island Glacier, allows pioneer species like mosses to colonize, starting succession, per a 2018 ecological study.

Fjords, carved by glaciers, are exposed as ice retreats in Canada’s Arctic, like in Nunavut, creating dramatic coastlines but also disrupting permafrost, per geological surveys.

Glacial meltwater in Peru’s Cordillera Blanca supplies irrigation for crops like quinoa. Retreating glaciers reduce this water, threatening food security, per a 2020 Nature study.

Switzerland’s glaciers, like the Aletsch, have lost 60% of their volume since 1850, exposing bare rock and forming new valleys, altering hiking routes and tourism, per Swiss glacier monitoring.

Glacial lake outburst floods (GLOFs) increase as retreating glaciers form unstable lakes that can burst, flooding valleys below, as seen in Nepal’s Imja Lake, per USGS reports.

Páramo ecosystems in the Andes rely on glacial meltwater for wetlands that supply water to cities like Quito. Retreating glaciers, like those on Chimborazo, reduce this flow, per studies.

Proglacial lakes form in depressions scoured by retreating glaciers, often dammed by moraines. Examples include Iceland’s Jökulsárlón, which expands as glaciers melt.

Greenland’s ice sheet has lost about 5,000 gigatons of ice since the 1990s, contributing roughly 14 mm to global sea level rise, per NASA data, flooding coastal landscapes worldwide.

Moraines are ridges of sediment, like rocks and soil, deposited at a glacier’s edge as it retreats. They shape modern landscapes, as seen in the Alps, marking former glacier boundaries.