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MrWowWow

(1,254 posts)
Fri Sep 19, 2025, 10:54 PM Friday

Will glaciers ever come back after they've melted away? [View all]

Short answer: No

Once a glacier fully melts away, it will not “come back” in the same form under the current and projected climate conditions.
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So, when you see a glacier calving during say, a cruise to Alaska (I did one of those from Seattle, that is an irreversible event. Definitely not like when a salamander or a lizard grows back a severed limb. While on that cruise to Alaska, I and other passengers went out on the deck when the ship entered Glacier Bay. The latest batch of seal pups and their mothers were floating by us as we entered their home. I remember locking eyes with one of the nursing seal mothers. My mind filled with sorrow and empaty as we passed she and her pup. They were on a small, free-floating chunk of ice. I distinctly remember that expressionless,climate refugee face of the mother seal. The bay was spotted with seal mothers and their newborn pups, each pair floating on a chunk of calved iceberg. Looked like a debris field from an aircraft crash or a battlefield from WW1. Evenentually, the ship got close to the Marjorie glacier. It calved and the crowd cheered! Obviously, they didn't understand the direness of that glacier's "health.". Marjorie's husband was no longer at her side. He'd melted off and was no where to be seen. At least not from our vantage point.

Glaciers only form and grow when snowfall accumulates year after year, compacts into ice, and the climate remains cold enough that summer melting does not remove all the winter snow. For a vanished glacier to reform, the local climate would have to shift back to one with much colder temperatures and much higher snowfall — essentially an ice-age type climate.

So, understand that none of what glacier calving and melting (state change) that we see with glaciers is cyclic. Take a look to see for yourself. Take a cruise to Alaska if you are like me, and desire to see firsthand, the face of Anthropogenic climate change.
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https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrPkiUmbNimynt74GYQiKBYdLCadq7PcC
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Marjorie Glacier Calving and Dying:

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