Rob Roy Glaicer Track

 I went on a hike to the Rob Roy glacier track and I thought it was amazing. I thought it was amazing because where I come from you don’t see glaciers that often. When I went on the Rob Roy glacier track,  I had to hike a long long time to get there but when I got there, I realized it was totally worth it. There were 16 waterfalls and an icy blue river. I researched and figured out why the glacier was so blue. When glaciers form, many layers of snow accumulate without melting and compress on top of each other year after year. When all the snow gets compressed, it turns into ice, making a glacier. Sometimes the glacier ice gets so heavy and dense that it squeezes all the air bubbles out making it look blue. This is because ice absorbs a little bit of red light. When the ice becomes really dense, light travels deep into the ice before bouncing and refracting back out, leaving a little bit of a bluish tint. (Source: National Snow and Ice Data Center.)

 About 10% of Earth’s land is covered in glacial ice! But 12,000 years ago, 32% of Earth’s land was covered in glacial ice- that was in the last Ice Age. Almost 69% of Earth’s freshwater is in ice caps and glaciers. When I went on the hike, the Rob Roy glacier was melting. I know it was melting because I observed it running into waterfalls that flowed into a river. 

 When glaciers melt the water can destroy lakes and reservoirs causing the amount of freshwater available to decline.

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Also it causes a chain reaction that we can’t stop because when it melts it makes more heat because the white ice reflects the sunlight but without the white ice it won’t bounce back so the glacier melts even faster and we can’t stop it. We can slow it down though by not making as much greenhouse gas and saving energy. People are the main reason global warming is happening. If the glaciers melt, it could cause other problems too, like releasing diseases that have been frozen in there for millions of years.

 It was cool to visit, but you have to be really careful. there were signs warning about avalanches and people die every year because of them.

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