Contribution To The Physics Of Glaciers

The Physics of Glaciers, Fourth Edition, discusses the physical principles that underlie the behavior and characteristics of glaciers. The term glacier refers to all bodies of ice created by the accumulation of snowfall, e.g., mountain glaciers, ice caps, continental ice sheets, and ice shelves. Glaciology—the study of all forms of ice—is an interdisciplinary field encompassing physics, geology, atmospheric science, mathematics, and others. This book covers various aspects of glacier studies, including the transformation of snow to ice, grain-scale structures and ice deformation, mass exchange processes, glacial hydrology, glacier flow, and the impact of climate change. The present edition features two new chapters: “Ice Sheets and the Earth System and “Ice, Sea Level, and Contemporary Climate Change. The chapter on ice core studies has been updated from the previous version with new material. The materials on the flow of mountain glaciers, ice sheets, ice streams, and ice shelves have been combined into a single chapter entitled “The Flow of Ice Masses. Completely updated and revised, with 30% new material including climate change Accessible to students, and an essential guide for researchers Authored by preeminent glaciologists

Explains the physical principles underlying the behaviour of glaciers and ice sheets. Concentrates on the major advances made in most aspects of the subject in the past 30 years with about half devoted to work done in the last 10 years i.e. since the first edition was published. The new edition is updated, expanded and in SI units

Explains the physical principles underlying the behaviour of glaciers and ice sheets and concludes with a chapter on the information about past climate and atmospheric composition obtainable from ice cores. The past 40 years have seen major advances in most aspects of the subject; the book concentrates on these. It is an updated and expanded version of the second edition, and is now available in the long-awaited paperback format. Much of the book deals with developments since the second edition was published. Dr Paterson's introduction to glacier studies was with the British North Greenland Expedition in 1953-4. He emigrated to Canada in 1957 and between 1959 and 1980 studied glaciers in the Canadian Arctic and the Rocky Mountains, mainly under the auspices of the Canadian Government's Polar Continental Shelf Project. Since 1980 he has done consulting work and has also been a visiting scientist with the Geophysics Department at the University of Copenhagen (three times) and with the Australian Antarctic Division. He has also given a comprehensive lecture course at the Institute of Glaciology and Geocryology in Lanzhou, China. He is now retired (more or less) and lives in British Columbia. New paperback edition of a classic text Well-known and respected author Updated and expanded since the second edition, reflecting the advances in most aspects of the subject over the last 40 years

Dynamics of Ice Sheets and Glaciers presents an introduction to the dynamics and thermodynamics of flowing ice masses on Earth. Based on an outline of general continuum mechanics, the different initial-boundary-value problems for the flow of ice sheets, ice shelves, ice caps and glaciers are systematically derived. Special emphasis is put on developing hierarchies of approximations for the different systems, and suitable numerical solution techniques are discussed. A separate chapter is devoted to glacial isostasy. The book is appropriate for graduate courses in glaciology, cryospheric sciences, environmental sciences, geophysics and related fields. Standard undergraduate knowledge of mathematics (calculus, linear algebra) and physics (classical mechanics, thermodynamics) provide a sufficient background for successfully studying the text.

The dissertation examines how actors in Norway, Sweden, and the British Empire conceived the Antarctic as a space for science during the years 1912 to 1952. Instead of tracing a narrative of enlightenment, how science became the dominant form of activity in the Antarctic, I examine a series of episodes with particular attention to why particular kinds of science held sway within specific political, cultural, and economic contexts. Concerned more with how Antarctic science was planned and justified than how it was executed in the field, the project draws upon recent scholarship in geography and geopolitics, as well as the history of exploration. The six case studies involve an aborted Anglo-Swedish Antarctic expedition in 1912; Britain's interwar Antarctic whaling research program; debates among whaling magnates and their associates over the relationship between Antarctic science and whaling in interwar Norway; the culture of polar exploration that emerged at Cambridge (and to some extent Oxford) between the world wars; the approach to polar exploration and quantitative glaciology pioneered by the Swedish geographer Hans Ahlmann; and the complicated history of the Norwegian-British-Swedish Antarctic Expedition (1949-52). I conclude with an epilogue arguing that the rise of international science in the Antarctic during the 1950s reflected the geopolitical dynamics of the Cold War, rather than the triumph of science over politics.

The purpose and scope of this book on theoretical glaciology is outlined in the Introduction. Its aim is to study the theoretical aspects of'ice mechanics' and the 'dynamics of ice masses in a geophysical environment. For the mature reader, the book can serve as an introduction to glaciology. How ever, this is not what I would regard as advisible. Glaciology is an inter disciplinary science in which many special scientific disciplines play their part, from descriptive geography to fairly abstract mathematics. Advance ment will evolve from a merger of two or more branches of scientific specialization. In the last 20 years, several researchers in different fields of glaciology have written books emphasizing the aspects of their specialities and I have listed some which are known to me at the end of the Introduction. When glancing through these books, one recognizes that the mathematical aspects of glaciology are generally glossed over and, to date, there seems to be nothing available which concentrates on these. Therefore, I have written this book in an effort to close the gap and no apologies are offered for the mathematical emphasis. Rather, I believe that this neglect has, to a certain extent, aggra vated progress in the modelling of glaciology problems.