Glaciology studies glaciers, ice sheets, snow, and their interaction with climate, oceans, and the solid Earth.
Ice sheet dynamics describes the gravity-driven deformation and basal motion of large terrestrial ice masses together with their mass balance.
An ice cap is a dome-shaped terrestrial ice mass that flows outward from one or more ice divides and is smaller than an ice sheet.
The shallow-ice approximation uses the small ratio of ice thickness to horizontal extent to make pressure hydrostatic and balance its horizontal gradient primarily by vertical shear stress.
An ice divide is a line or point of maximum ice-surface elevation from which ice flows in opposite directions. Symmetry gives zero horizontal ice flux at the divide.
The snowline separates a region of net annual snow accumulation from a region of net ablation. A height-based idealization places it where the ice surface has a prescribed elevation .
Basal sliding is motion of glacier ice relative to its bed. A sliding law relates the basal velocity to basal shear stress, effective pressure, roughness, or other bed properties.
Articles by others on the same topic
There are currently no matching articles.