Glacier ice today stores about three-fourths of all the freshwater in the world. Glacier ice covers about 11 percent of the world’s land area and would cause a world sea-level rise of about 90 metres (300 feet) if all existing ice melted. Glaciers occur in all parts of the world and at almost all latitudes. In Ecuador, Kenya, Uganda, and Irian Jaya (New Guinea), glaciers even occur at or near the Equator, albeit at high altitudes.

Glaciers are classifiable in three main groups:

1. glaciers that extend in continuous sheets, moving outward in all directions, are called ice sheets if they are the size of Antarctica or Greenland and ice caps if they are smaller

2. glaciers confined within a path that directs the ice movement are called mountain glaciers.

3. glaciers that spread out on the level ground or on the ocean at the foot of glaciated regions are called piedmont glaciers or ice shelves, respectively.

Glaciers in the third group are not independent and are treated here in terms of their sources: ice shelves with ice sheets, piedmont glaciers with mountain glaciers. A complex of mountain glaciers burying much of a mountain range is called an ice field.

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