Glaciers, Ice and Global Warming Glaciers are one of the most fundamental phenomena on the planet, and much of their purpose and impact on the earth has been well documented and published. Ice sheets, ice sheets and glaciers trap nearly 90% of the world's fresh water and are replenished each year by snowfall. Their existence on this planet dates back 650,000,000 years, yet they are always moving, always moving, and always merging. Before human existence and even during the brief era of man, ice dominated all of Earth's land and regulated, created and altered many of the world's landscapes. The numerous ice ages documented on this planet that have shaped its contours offer us incredible insight into many of the factors that have made this planet the way we see it today. But the beauty of the fact that glaciers and polar ice caps are much older than the human race is that scientists are able to discern a lot of information and characteristics from the past. And by understanding the past, we get a much better perspective of the future: what h...