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Definition of ice cap
1 : a cover of perennial ice and snow specifically : a glacier forming on an extensive area of relatively level land and flowing outward from its center
2 : an ice bag shaped to the head
Examples of ice cap in a Sentence
Recent Examples on the Web During its journey, the spacecraft's LORRI instrument snapped photos suggesting a polar ice cap at the north pole of Pluto.
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John Wenz, Popular Mechanics, "What New Horizons Has Already Told Us About Pluto," 13 July 2015 Overall, the majority of Mars' water is locked up in its polar ice caps.
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Ashley Strickland, CNN, "Mars, already largely desert, is losing water quicker than expected, study says," 10 Jan. 2020 And with good reason: On our own planet, the world is burning (literally in California, the Amazon, and Indonesia to name a few current locations), our ice caps are melting, and around the globe species are dying out.
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Ben Lamm, Quartz, "The problems we’re solving for on Earth will only follow us to Mars," 5 Dec. 2019 Aspiring teachers are encouraged to ground their lessons in what’s happening in the community — connecting not just to polar ice caps, but to the students’ own water quality, for instance.
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Sonali Kohlistaff Writer, Los Angeles Times, "Two-thirds of California students didn’t meet science standards. Here’s why," 13 Feb. 2020 Meanwhile, the planet’s ice sheets will continue to melt, leading to ever-higher sea levels, as will the Arctic ice cap.
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Elizabeth Kolbert, The New Yorker, "What Will Another Decade of Climate Crisis Bring?," 5 Jan. 2020 Scientists monitoring the ice cap's progress say it's moved beyond a simple glacial surge.
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Chelsea Harvey, Scientific American, "A Russian Ice Cap Is Collapsing--It Could Be a Warning," 23 Dec. 2019 Geologists have seen for the first time rapid ice loss at the Vavilov ice cap in the Arctic Circle.
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Fox News, "New ‘ice river’ detected at Arctic glacier adds to rising seas, scientists say," 18 Dec. 2019 Retreating ice caps brought the warm and wet conditions of the Holocene, allowing for the rise and spread of agriculture.
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Jay Bennett, Smithsonian, "The Ten Best Science Books of 2019," 11 Dec. 2019
See MoreThese example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'ice cap.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
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Time Traveler for ice cap
The first known use of ice cap was in 1816
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