Norway 2021

today i went hiking on the nigardsbreen glacier - but before i tell you something about that glacier, i will tell you why glacier ice is blue...
glacier ice is blue because of its density. light consists of all colors but the the red (long wavelengths) part of white light is absorbed by this ice and the blue (short wavelengths) light is transmitted and scattered. The longer the path light travels in this ice, the more blue it appears. if you cut out ice cubes, they do not appear blue any more.
so now more about the nigardsbreen.... this is a glacier arm of the large jostedalsbreen glacier, which is the largest glacier in continental europe. nigardsbreen lies about 30 kilometres north of the village of gaupne in the jostedalen valley.
the glaciers of norway are not to be seen as relics of the ice age. during a postglacial warm period, the entire area became ice-free, so that the glaciers formed during the ice age had melted. in the subatlantic (approx. 500 bc) there was a deterioration in the climate. this was marked by a drop in the snow line. therefore today's glaciers originate from this period. the tip of the *glacier tongue" you can see on the picture is round about 700 years old.
since 1899, the behavior of the nigardsbreen is observed. from 1899 to 1972 the glacier retreated 2.4 km. dince the mid-1970s, however, a decrease in the return rate was observed. grom 1975 to 1989 there were only minimal changes in the glacier length. from 1990 to 2000, a push behavior showed, the glacier grew by 250 m. then return movements were recorded again. from 2000 to 2010, the glacier retreated by about 100 meters, from 2010 to 2016 by 250 m. In the heat summer 2018 melted the glacier over 100 m.En savoir plus