Rick Coughlin, age i0, of Albany, N.Y., for his question:

What happens when a glacier melts?

This is an age of shrinking ice fields and the edges Of the glaciers are always melting. Streams of chilly water run away and join the rivers flowing to the sea. High in the Andes, water from the melting snowcaps runs into ice cold lakes and trickles away to feed the mighty Amazon. Some glaciers meet the sea and the pounding waves bite off huge chunks that float away as icebergs.

Mort frozen snow is added to a glacier every season and the mass of fragile ice moves under its own weight. The edges advance an inch or perhaps ten feet a day.  They are chewed off by the sea or melted by the balmy air. When a glacier melts, its ice turns to water and runs away.