Tidewater glaciers shed icebergs when ice cliffs calve into the sea
Where a glacier flows into the ocean, its snout becomes a vertical ice cliff. Chunks fracture off in thunderous calving events and become icebergs that drift with currents and tides.
Warm seawater undercuts the face, while cracks from flow stress open from above. The lost ice is not only surface melt — it is solid glacier exported as floating fragments.
Ice meets salt water at a noisy frontier. Tidewater glaciers link mountain ice to polar seas, turning alpine snowfall into wandering bergs years later.
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