What is the reason for the melting of glaciers?

The reasons for glacier melting include climate warming and human factors.

1, climate warming

As humans continue to cut down forests and burn fossil energy such as oil and coal, greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide produced on the earth exceed their self-purification load. These greenhouse gases have a strong permeability to visible light emitted by the sun, but they have a strong absorption to long-wave radiation emitted by the earth, and they can strongly absorb infrared radiation emitted by the ground, which leads to an increase in the temperature of the earth and an intensification of the greenhouse effect.

Under the influence of global warming, glaciers are melting at an extremely rapid rate in recent years. Glaciers are supplemented by natural snowfall to maintain their dynamic balance, which reflects the balance of income and expenditure of glacier accumulation and melting. If the bad weather continues, glaciers will continue to shrink and melt.

2. Human factors

In addition to natural climate factors, another main reason for the rapid melting of glaciers is population expansion. Due to human overgrazing, over-reclamation, deforestation, indiscriminate exploitation of Chinese herbal medicines and groundwater, the speed of glacier retreat has been greatly accelerated.

With the development of society, the population has doubled, but the cultivated land area can't increase accordingly. The contradiction between man and land led to three large-scale deforestation and land reclamation in northwest China in the 20 years after the founding of New China. Take Gansu Province as an example. By the end of 1990s, the area of soil erosion in Gansu Province accounted for 85.6% of the total area, and the sandstorm weather increased obviously, which further aggravated the glacier shrinkage.

Extended data

The influence of iceberg melting on human beings;

1, sea level rise?

Global warming leads to the continuous melting of Antarctic and Arctic glaciers. If all the glaciers melt, the snow and ice in the permafrost of the mountains all over the world will also melt. The water resources stored in icebergs account for 70% of the global fresh water resources. Once all the glaciers melt, the sea level will rise by 66 meters, and the direct result is that the human habitat will shrink indefinitely. ?

2. Has global warming intensified?

If all the glaciers in the polar regions melt, it means that the temperature of the earth has risen to a certain extent, and mankind will face extreme global warming at that time. Glaciers can form a specular reflection, reflecting some sunlight away. When the glacier melts completely, the temperature of the earth will continue to rise, because it cannot reflect the temperature of the sun. Finally, human beings may be unable to survive because of high temperature, which will eventually lead to extinction. ?

3. Species extinction?

Due to the disappearance of the Arctic and Antarctic ice sheets, the population of polar bears has been declining for many years. If the melting of glaciers continues to increase and the temperature continues to rise, polar bears will become extinct because of their inability to adapt to the environment and lack of food.