The [glaciology] tag concerns all forms of snow and ice on Earth and in space. And the marks left by ancient glaciers.
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How would Earth map look like if all ice melts?
Is there somewhere a map which indicates which areas and cities become sea?
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How many extreme shifts in climate has Earth gone through in its existence?
As the Earth formed, it went through cycles of essentially hotter and colder periods. Extremely volcanic times and ice ages, in feedback loops contributing to one another. CO2 swinging from high to ...
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How old are Chile's fjords?
Do we have any knowledge about the age of Chile's fjords, more specifically, those found near the Northern Patagonian Ice Field?
Is it reasonable to conclude that they were formed in Quaternary given ...
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Nonlinear Stokes equations for glacier modeling
What is the difference between
$$\operatorname{div}(-\mu(u)\nabla u+pI)=f\tag{1}$$
and
$$\operatorname{div}(-\mu(u)(\nabla u\color{red}{+(\nabla u)^\mathsf{T}})+pI)=f\tag{2}$$
from the physical ...
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Simple and realistic data for glacier modeling
I'm programming the nonlinear Stokes problem (with a finite element method),
$$\operatorname{div}(\mu(u)\nabla u+pI)=f$$
where $\mu(u)$ is the Glen's power flow law (typical for glaciers). I want to ...
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What factors explain mountain glacier retreat variability?
It is well known that the majority of the world's mountain glaciers are retreating, but looking at a few LANDSAT images from the 1980s and today I am able to see glaciers that have retreated ...
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Status of overdue glaciation hypothesis
What is the status of the Early Anthropocene hypothesis, in the specific meaning that the climate would be projected to be significantly cooler (such as, on the order of by 0.8 degrees in the planet ...
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Why does glacier ice look blue?
The color of the ice observed in glaciers, icebergs and crevasses is often blue. However, ice cubes and industrial ice blocks are perfectly transparent or white if not.
So. Why does glacier ice look ...
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If there's more water in the atmosphere due to global warming, how are there fewer mountain glaciers?
As I understand it, moisture condenses at mountain tops to form the mountain glaciers that provide water. The mountain topography doesn't change much in the span of a few decades, so if there's more ...
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What would it be like to live in an ice age?
If you were born in the most recent ice age, how different would your life be compared to how you live it today? Furthermore, if humans currently lived in an ice age, how would it affect life today?
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Is a glacier advancing or retreating? How to tell?
What are the most common ways you would use to tell whether a given mountain glacier is advancing or retreating, judging only by its present state by looking at it? Please list anything you can think ...
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How do glaciers move? Could Antarctica be separated?
Consider the example of the Larsen Ice Shelf. Ice platforms are attached to glaciers such that they prevent surrounding warm air from directly melting the glaciers. This is an important aspect of ice ...
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The giant 6,000 km$^2$ iceberg A-68; will ground-truth telemetry supplement satellite tracking data?
update 2: FIRST images of A-68 iceberg not taken from a satellite in space but from the air are out. On this NASA Earth Observatory web page are areal images from NASA's Operation IceBridge taken from ...
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Why do fjords have sills?
I have read about some of the geologic processes that are related to the formation of fjords. Is the presence of sills in fjords related to the deposition of glacial moraine?
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Esker vs. Kame vs. Drumlin - what's the difference?
In researching glacial features, I came across the terms esker, drumlin, and kame. I know that they are all depositional features that are shaped like a mound. My impression is that an esker is longer ...
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Is this 70km crack in an ice shelf of Antarctica remarkable, or a regular occurrence?
I've just seen the LiveScience article 70-Mile-Long Crack Opens Up in Anatarctica. I'm not sure if the title is a bit sensational or not, the crack is in an ice shelf, not the continent of Antarctica.
...
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Was there once a glacier over Starcke national park in Queensland Australia?
I was randomly exploring Google Earth when I came across some sort of rock formation in northern Australia. The location of the rock formation with respect to Australia is shown below. It is in or ...
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Will increased precipitation in Antarctica prevent sea level rise?
It has been suggested that global warming will lead to increased precipitation in parts of Antarctica. This would sequester water in the ice sheet, preventing sea level rise.
However, the slope (and ...
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Is glacier growing a hoax?
There is a wikipedia page on glacier growing, and also a Master thesis has apparently been written on the subject, investigating this practice in Northern Pakistan.
On the one hand, I have read (I'm ...
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Doesn't the sublimation rate on glaciers depend on the (specific) latent heat of sublimation of water ice?
On p. 6 of this article:
Bliss, A.K., Cuffey, K.M., Kavanaugh, J.L., 2011. Sublimation and surface energy budget of Taylor Glacier, Antarctica. Journal of Glaciology 57, 684–696.
There is an ...
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How significant is human influence on seismic activity?
Here's a graph from johnstonsarchive.net showing energy released by earthquakes and, however reliable this graph is, it shows huge differences in earthquake activity. About how big percent is the ...
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What is more important in Antarctica calving or basal melting of the ice shelves?
Ice shelves are present along 75% of Antarctica coast and cover over 1.5 million km2. The two main processes causing mass loss of the ice shelf are basal melting and calving. Which of the two ...
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Typical values of Glen flow law for glaciers?
The Glen flow law for glaciers is a common relationship linking stress to strain. At its simplest,
$\Sigma = k\tau^n$
where $\tau$ is stress, $\Sigma$ is strain, and $n$ is roughly 3.
I understand ...
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Can glaciers be less than 30m thick?
The wikipedia page on Ice-sheet dynamics claims that:
Ice will not flow until it has reached a thickness of 30 meters (98 ft)
And this geography website claims that
To be called a glacier, a ...
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Is this article self-contradictory, or am I missing something?
This article:
Anderson, C. H., C. J. Behrens, G. A. Floyd, and M. R. Vining. 1998. “Crater Firn Caves of Mount St. Helens, Washington.” Journal of Cave and Karst Studies 60: 44–50.
discusses, among ...
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Traits of invaded ecosystems? Are my compost worms a threat to New York?
I was shocked to learn that there were few native worms in the glaciated portion of North America. I use worms indoors to compost paper and kitchen scraps. I don't think there is much chance of ...
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When will the Final Ice Age happen?
As the Sun's luminosity slowly rises, the Earth's surface temperature will climb. Will Earth ever be too warm to have any more glacial periods? If so, when will that be?
Edit: The existing answer ...
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Is there a name for this type of ice crystal?
Recently, I took the following picture:
I have read about this phenomenon and I think it is caused by water vapour that is pressed out of the ground and then freezes due to low temperature. However, ...
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Converting glacier volume to mass: what ice density to use?
The density of ice is 0.9167 g/cm3 at 0 °C (under atmospheric pressure).
I know of two factors that may influence this (are there more?)
Pressure
The glaciology faq (Common Questions and Myths ...
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How do we use oxygen isotopes as temperature proxy?
As far as I know scientists use oxygen isotope 16 to 18 ratio in air trapped in glaciers (or in old foraminiftera shells) as proxy for temperature in the past. I know that $\ce{^18O}$ is heavier, and ...
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Is Antarctic sea ice at record levels?
Every time I read a news article about Antarctic ice extent, I don't seem to have a clear answer as to what the deal is. If I look at the February sea ice extent from the National Snow and Ice Data ...
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How strong can a glacial icequake get?
While researching Antarctic geology, I came across the term 'icequake' in the abstract to the article Seismicity within a propagating ice shelf rift: The relationship between icequake locations and ...
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What geophysical knowledge have we learned by the construction of IceCube?
The IceCube is a particle detector at the South Pole that records neutrino interactions. It has lead to many fascinating new discoveries in the field of astrophysics (e.g., 1, 2) and it was awarded "...
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How would an icicle “grow” upwards?
The other day a friend of my dad's showed him a picture of an icicle that appeared to be "growing" upwards out of a crack in a sidewalk. There were no roofs, overhangs or vehicles parked near by... It ...
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How do perennial rivers in high alpine areas maintain year round flows?
We have several perennial rivers in my country that originate out of high altitude alpine glacier melt. I can understand snow or glacier melting in the summer to increase the flows but it is observed ...
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What are the non-anthropogenic causes of The Netherlands' low elevation?
A large area of The Netherlands is below sea level. There are two non-anthropogenic reasons that I can think of:
Compaction of delta sediments that lie below the country,
A side effect of the ...
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Glaciology: odd pattern of smooth and ribbed chunks of ice in Antartica
At -69.184611, -68.124276 (just east of the Bugge Islands) there is a triangular ice shelf. On satellite images (as seen on Google/Bing maps) you can see it is riddled with --for lack of a clearer ...
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About moving ice bergs northwards to slow down all the melting a tiny bit. ( Clearing away navigation hazards is a side effect of this.)
I read somewhere someone someone had the idea to try to move a 'small' iceberg with giant tugboats used to move oil-rigs. I thought if an Iceberg could be moved, why not move it $NORTHWARD$ maybe ...
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What percent of volcanoes are glaciated?
I have not been able to find an estimate of how many known volcanoes host perennial ice masses, and it would be very useful to me. Does anyone know of any attempts to do this?
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Can earthquakes contribute to Antarctic ice loss?
I read about the earthquake that took place in Japan in 2011, led to some small calving events in Antarctica (link). So, it makes me think if there is a big earthquake near or in Antarctica, can it ...
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Why are some theories as to the cause of glacation less popular among the scientific community?
There are a few theories as to the causes of glaciation.
There's the Milankovitch Theory, which says that there are cyclical changes in Earth's orbit and in the tilt of Earth's axis that occur over ...
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Why do those glaciers form on the lee side of the mountains?
In the Scandinavian mountains, there is a strong effect of orographic precipitation. The west receives far more precipitation than the east. This difference can be a factor 5 or more in some places.
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Any other fumarolic ice caves in the literature? [closed]
I study the fumarolic ice caves of Erebus Volcano, and am looking for published research on similar sorts of caves. My criteria for a "fumarolic ice cave" are that it must be:
A gas-filled void space ...
