Glaciers

The closer to the poles of the Earth you go Or ascend heights, the temperature turns low Ten thousand years ago, the world was colder than it is today Britain immersed in snow Glaciation changed the face of the countryside To become more like the Earth we know Working slowly, giant hunks of ice cut and slide then push aside tons of stone Signs say at the time of the ice age A third of the Earth's surface totally snowed over Then the Fahrenheit rose, polar caps and ice flows Capsized, and shrank in size loads Today the only glaciers remain on high latitudes or low altitude terrain So though only a tenth of the globe's glaciated There's occassional formations close the the equator See the way that they're made in this how-to guide Snowflakes accumulate in mountainsides The weight creates pressure Making a firm and dense substance that's termed by the name of firn If the ice stays frozen as snow falls Then it snowballs, grows and grows more And as the mass increases Gradually gravity grabs massive pieces and releases them Woe betide anything in the way As they slowly slide lower and erode it away With an amazing grace Glaciers patiently changed the landscape on a grand scale Glaciers, how long will they stay here? Glaciers, how long will they stay here? Two major stages make up glacier formation And they're named accumulation and ablation Accumulation happens in the winter, it gets bigger While ablation is the inverse It shrinks year to year every summer then returns And that's the basic annual changes that happen to a glacier But on a grander timescale The average size fails to remain the same And changes at a snail's pace Now I don't wanna get too technical So let me just explain the basics And then I'll change the subject If you take away ablation from accumulation Then the data you remain with is the glacial budget If the figure's bigger than zero, it's advancing But if it's less than, it's a negative regime The level will decrease until everything retreats And all we're left with is just a petty little piece of what it used to be Experts agree that greenhouse gas such as CFCs Mean the atmosphere's heat's increasing Leading to deeper seas, the decline in ice Causing rising tides on shorelines worldwide Glaciers, how long will they stay here? Glaciers, how long will they stay here?