How much land ice is there in the World? Most (99.5%) of the permanent ice volume in the world is locked up in ice sheets and glaciers. The Antarctic Ice Sheet is the largest store of frozen freshwater; it would raise sea levels by 57.9 m (its “sea level equivalent”, or SLE) on full melting […]
What is the global volume of land ice and how is it changing? Read More »
Glacier accumulation | Glacier ablation | Equilibrium line altitude | Glaciers as a system | Further reading | References | Comments | Glacier accumulation A glacier is a pile of snow and ice. In cold regions (either towards the poles or at high altitudes), more snow falls (accumulates) than melts (ablates) in the summer season.
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A new paper with a whole host of authors has just been published in Nature (IMBIE Team, 2018). It provides a new estimate of mass balance of the entire Antarctic Ice Sheet over the last 25 years, the longest and most thorough estimate of this to date. This article argues that the Antarctic Peninsula, the
Mass balance of the Antarctic ice sheet from 1992 to 2017 Read More »
How does mass balance vary over Antarctica? | Surface mass balance in the past | Surface mass balance in the future | References | Comments | How does mass balance vary over Antarctica? Is Antarctica currently losing or gaining mass? Will this massive ice sheet grow or shrink in the future? And what effect will
Antarctic Ice Sheet mass balance Read More »
Glacier mass balance | Measuring mass balance | Mass balance gradients | Mass balance through time | Further reading | References | Comments | Glacier mass balance The mass balance of a glacier is a concept critical to all theories of glacier flow and behaviour. It is simple enough, really: mass balance is simply the gain
An introduction to Glacier Mass Balance Read More »
What is glacier response time? | The role of glacier size | The role of mass balance gradients | The role of glacier slope and hypsometry | Calculating glacier response times | Summary | Further reading | References | Comments | What is glacier response time? Glacier response time is the length of time taken
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This section of the website focuses on Process Glaciology; that is, the processes by which glaciers grow and form, flow, and move. We focus on the ‘nuts and bolts’ of glacier processes, such as glacier mass balance, glacier flow, and the structures in the ice that these processes causem such as crevasses, as well as
Glacier mass balance | Glacier flow | Internal deformation | Basal sliding | Subglacial deformation | Different types of glacier flow | References | Comments | Glacier mass balance How do glaciers move? A glacier is a pile of ice, and as such, deforms under the force of gravity. Glaciers flow downslope because they accumulate
Deformation and sliding Read More »
