Birth, growth and decay of glaciers

Glaciers respond to a negative mass balance either by recession of the snout or down-wasting. Here Mueller Glacier in the Southern Alps of New Zealand is down-wasting into an incipient lake. Its Little Ice Age lateral moraines are in the background and behind them is the country’s highest peak, Mount Cook, or Aoraki in Maouri, meaning the “Cloud Piercer” (3,754 m). MH

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