Glaciers - Dan Bull

The closer to the poles of the Earth you go

Or ascend heights, the temperature turns low

Ten thousand years ago, the world was colder than it is today

Britain immersed in snow

Glaciation changed the face of the countryside

To become more like the Earth we know

Working slowly, giant hunks of ice

Cut and slide then push aside tons of stone

Signs say at the time of the ice age

A third of the Earth’s surface totally snowed over

Then the Fahrenheit rose, polar caps and ice flows

Capsized, and shrank in size loads

Today the only glaciers remain

On high latitudes or low altitude terrain

So though only a tenth of the globe’s glaciated

There’s occassional formations close the the equator

See the way that they’re made in this how-to guide

Snowflakes accumulate in mountainsides

The weight creates pressure

Making a firm and dense substance that’s termed by the name of firn

If the ice stays frozen as snow falls

Then it snowballs, grows and grows more

And as the mass increases

Gradually gravity grabs massive pieces and releases them

Woe betide anything in the way

As they slowly slide lower and erode it away

With an amazing grace

Glaciers patiently changed the landscape on a grand scale

Glaciers, how long will they stay here?

Glaciers, how long will they stay here?

Two major stages make up glacier formation

And they’re named accumulation and ablation

Accumulation happens in the winter, it gets bigger

While ablation is the inverse

It shrinks year to year every summer, then returns

And that’s the basic annual changes that happen to a glacier

But on a grander timescale

The average size fails to remain the same

And changes at a snail’s pace

Now I don’t wanna get too technical

So let me just explain the basics

And then I’ll change the subject

If you take away ablation from accumulation

Then the data you remain with is the glacial budget

If the figure’s bigger than zero, it’s advancing

But if it’s less than, it’s a negative regime

The level will decrease until everything retreats

And all we’re left with is a petty little piece of what it used to be

Experts agree that greenhouse gas such as CFCs

Mean the atmosphere’s heat’s increasing

Leading to deeper seas, the decline in ice

Causing rising tides on shorelines worldwide

Glaciers, how long will they stay here?

Glaciers, how long will they stay here?