27900574

5th Hour

ADI Investigation Report

Introduction and Guiding Question:
Glaciers are made up of fallen snow that, over many years, compress
into large, thick masses of ice. Glaciers form when snow remains in one
location long enough to transform into ice. When the Earth is going through
Global Warming, the glaciers start to melt and may flood coastal cities. To
test this, we created a lab where we could change the temperature and
snowfall and see what happens, over a period of time, to the length of a
glacier. The Guiding Question was: how do climate conditions affect the size
of a glacier?

Method:
For our experiment, we used an online simulation. The simulation
shows how the glacier grows or shrinks as the temperature, snowfall, and
other factors affected the size of the glacier. To test the glacier, we reset the
program and paused the simulation. We also set the temperatures and
snowfall because those were the two variables we changed. As we were
running the stimulation, we observed that the glacier picked up sediment as
it grew and when it melted, it left piles of sediment. As we tested the glacier,
we put our data into a data table and later created a graph which clearly
showed the relationships between the manipulated variable and the
dependent variable. To start with, we tested whether the snowfall affected
the size of the glacier or not. We kept the Temperature at 60 degrees
Fahrenheit and then started the snowfall at .5 feet per year. We let the
simulation run for 100 years (simulation time) and then measured the height
of the glacier in three different locations. Then we repeated the same
process in increments of .5 up till 4.5. After this was done, we plotted all of
the Averages into a graph. We also tested if the temperature affected the
size of the glacier or not. To do this, we started the temperature at 56
degrees Fahrenheit, and let the stimulation run for 100 (stimulation) years.
Then, as we did before for the snowfall, we measured the height of the
glacier and then measured the distance of the end of the glacier to the start

of the glacier over 100 years. We repeated this process for temperatures in
increments of two until 68 as it shows in the graph.

The Argument:
The claim answering the guiding question is that as the snowfall
increases and the temperature decreases, the glacier grows.
We made an interpretation that the length of the glacier (over 100
years) increased as the snowfall increased for one data set. For the other set,
we saw that the distance of the glacier (over 100 years) decreased as the
temperature increased. Our data clearly showed that when the snowfall
increased, the glacier grew. Table 1 shows the glaciers distance and height
increasing as snowfall increases. The table shows how when the snowfall
increased from 0.5 to 1ft., the height increased from 0 to 302ft. This occurs
because if more snow falls, there will be more snowfall to compact into ice.
This will cause the glacier to grow.
Table 2 displays the glaciers distance and height decreasing as the
temperature increases. When the temperature was at 56 degrees Fahrenheit,
the length of the glacier was 95341 ft. and the average height was 649 ft.
When the temperature increased to 66 degrees Fahrenheit, the length
decreased to 21555 ft. and the average height became 491 ft. This data
supports our claim of as temperature decreases the glacier grows larger.
Glaciers form when snow accumulates over time. The weight of the top
layer of snow eventually exerts enough downward pressure to make both
layers into ice. This process can only occur when the conditions are right. In
order for a glacier to form, temperatures need to be cold enough for snow to
accumulate. There also needs to be enough precipitation for snow to build
and transform to ice. Global Warming would increase temperatures and
likely any precipitation or snow that falls to melt. Our data suggests that
global warming will likely reduce the formation of glaciers and cause existing
glaciers to melt. Humans should examine their production of greenhouse
gases and worth to reduce the amount produced in order to avoid melting of
glaciers which would likely lead to costal flooding.

Table 1

Height at
5151(ft.)
Height at
13615(ft.)
Height at
185703(ft
.)
Average(f
t.)

Snowfall
(ft.)
1.5
343
3452

0.5
0

302 1

320

356

2.5 363

3
367

3693.5

549

671

641

712

723

723

728

731

783

816

827

841

844

849

851

283

484

502

628

639

643

648

650

17848

54508

67525

77001

84005

88615

92652

95341

Distance
after 100
years

Table 2
Temperature (o
56

Height at
5151(ft.)
Height atDi
13615(ft.)st
a

Height atn
185703(ft.
c
)
Average(ft.
)
Distance
after 100

58

60

62

64

360

359

382

348

366

294

739

720

730

704

680

579

849

840

853

825

796

601

Di
st
a
n
c

649

639

655

625

604

491

95314

90157

85171

75427

60499

21555