The hydrographs of two jökulhlaups resulting from the sudden drainage of an ice-dammed lake in West Greenland in 1984 and 1987 are compared. The first flood had a similar peak discharge to the second but drained only two-thirds of the total volume of the 1987 event which amounted to 32–36 × 106 m3 in 36 h. Calculations based on the lake refill time suggest that it drains every 2–3 years, but that peak flows may be variable from flood to flood. The timing of the jökulhlaups in relation to the melt season may reflect variations of water pressure within the subglacial drainage networks, and changes in the configuration of these networks and the positions of crevasses on an annual basis.

Long-term records (10–30 years of measurements) of North American glaciers are compared using Lliboutry’s simplified linear model. This model separates the mass balance into two additive terms, one dependent on the location of the glacier and the other on time. The time-dependent term provides a common signal for the variations of different glaciers. Principal-component analysis indicates that these similarities amount to between 65 and 70% of the total variance for glaciers up to about 500 km apart. Within this distance, similar variations of mass balance and, therefore the same yearly climatic variations, can be observed.

A mathematical model is proposed which gives operational criteria for the construction of artificial, floating ice platforms by water flooding and spraying. The model is based on the one-dimensional heat conduction equation. It gives the change in time of the internal temperature field of the ice layer as it responds to changes in the external conditions. The influence of the atmospheric conditions, including wind speed, air temperature, and cloud cover, on the thermal changes in the ice layer have been considered, both for flooding and for spraying. The importance of the water-delivery conditions, the mass flux of the supplied water, and the degree of droplet cooling during spraying, have also been investigated. The rate of ice growth has been examined for repetitive spraying and flooding, and the quantitative advantage of spraying has been demonstrated.

A joint dynamical system comprising both an eroding glacier and an eroded bed is considered to describe the formation of cirques and stepped longitudinal profiles of trough valleys. A glacier is modelled as a layer of a very viscous incompressible fluid flowing down an inclined bed. The rate of erosion is assumed to be determined by the basal shear stress. The dynamics of small longitudinal perturbations are studied. The analysis shows that the perturbations propagate up the glacier bed with velocities that are different for the perturbations of different spatial scales. As a result, a perturbation of a specific spatial scale stands out against the others and develops into the morphological forms considered here.

The late Pleistocene Big Timber glacier of west-central Montana was used as the test case for a model which calculates the mass balance of a paleoglacier using glacial flow theory. Application of Glen’s flow law to a detailed reconstruction of the glacier provided an estimate of the component of mass flux due to internal deformation. Assuming basal slip to be zero where mass flux due to deformation was a maximum, the mass flux at the equilibrium-line altitude (ELA) an ablation gradient of 3.0 ± 0.6 mm/m, and an accumulation gradient of 1.0 ± 0.2 mm/m were determined. Application of the continuity model above and below the ELA generated a second estimate of mass flux at discrete points along the glacier. The difference between deformation flux and continuity flux yields a first approximation of slip, which is highly variable along the glacier. Since the mass-balance gradients are climatically controlled, this model provides information on the paleoclimatic setting of the glacier. The low gradients indicate that, during the last glacial maximum, the east side of the central Rocky Mountains experienced a cold, dry environment much like that of modern-day glaciers in the Brooks Range of Alaska.

Experiments have established that the fracture toughness of fresh-water, bubbly ice is not affected by the presence of salt water.

“Striations” produced by catastrophic subglacial drainage of an ice-dammed lake were investigated in front of Mjelkedalsbreen, Jotunheimen, southern Norway. At each site, length, width, and orientation of at least 50 “striations” were recorded. These data are compared with similar measurements from a glacially abraded “control” site. On the basis of length or width measurements alone, “striations” produced by subglacial drainage are not consistently distinguishable from those produced by glacial abrasion. However, the former display more variable orientations and cross-cutting relationships which could be misinterpreted as indicating changing ice-flow directions. They can be recognized by the occurrence of some “striations” with relatively low length : width ratios, which indicate the transport of boulders by saltation.

VLF surface-impedance measurements were made along four traverses on the Antarctic ice sheet in the vicinity of Casey base. Computer modelling of the surface-impedance data allowed ice-depth predictions to be made; predictions which are almost independent of ice temperature for ice depths less than 800 m. Results agree with ice-radar and other ice-depth data. Surface-impedance anomalies were observed close to moraines and crevasses in the ice sheet. The technique is fast and the instrumentation sufficiently portable for single-person operation.

Tiltmeters that can detect changes in slope of a glacier surface as small as 0.1 μ rad have been used on Storglaciären. The records obtained to date have been from the upper part of the ablation area, where the bed of the glacier is overdeepened. A total of 82 d of records has been obtained for various time periods between early June and early September.

There is generally a gradual change in inclination of the glacier surface over periods of several days, but these changes do not appear to be systematic. In particular, they are not consistent with vertical movements of stakes located 2–3 ice thicknesses away from the tiltmeters. This suggests that the tiltmeters are sensing disturbances over areas with diameters comparable to the local ice thickness.

Superimposed on these trends are diurnal signals suggesting rises and falls of the surface just up-glacier from the riegel that bounds the overdeepening on its down-glacier end. These may be due to waves of high water pressure originating in a crevassed area near the equilibrium line. If this interpretation is correct, the waves apparently move down-glacier at speeds of 20–60 m h−1 and become sufficiently focused, either by the bed topography or by conduit constrictions, to result in local uplift of the surface. Also observed are abrupt tilts towards the glacier center line shortly after the beginning of heavy rainstorms. These appear to be due to longitudinal stretching as the part of the glacier below the riegel accelerates faster than that above. Water entering the glacier by way of a series of crevasses over the riegel is believed to be responsible for this differential acceleration. In June 1987, a dramatic event was registered, probably reflecting the initial summer acceleration of the glacier.

Strong winds can disrupt the thermal regime in seasonal snow because of the variation in surface pressure associated with surface features like dunes and ripples. Topographical features of shorter wavelengths produce stronger surface flows, but the flow decays rapidly with depth. Longer-wavelength features produce weaker surface flows but the flow decays more slowly with depth. The flow may only be strong enough to disrupt the temperature field for features of wavelengths on the scale of meters or tens of meters at wind speeds of 10 m/s or more.

Other possible causes of windpumping have been examined but they do not appear to be as significant. Rapid pressure perturbations due to turbulence produce very little displacement of the air because of the high frequency and low amplitude. Barometric pressure changes cause compression and expansion of the air in the pore space, but the rate is too low to have much effect.

This paper tests and falsifies the theory that the development of thick sequences of vertically stacked clean and debris-laden ice layers at the margin of the Greenland ice sheet can be attributed solely to simple freezing-on of material at the bed. Isotopic analysis in δD and δ18O of ice from the ice-sheet margin near Søndre Stramfjord indicates that the debris-rich and debris-poor elements of the basal sequence have different origins. While the debris bands display isotopic fractionation consistent with a freezing origin, the intercalated clean ice layers do not. The clean ice layers have isotopic values indistinguishable from debris-bearing ice immediately above the debris-band sequence and from unaltered glacier ice, and are entrained by a different process from the debris bands. Debris may be entrained by freezing at the bed, but the development of a vertically stacked sequence of debris bands must be attributed to some other mechanism.

The development of strong preferred c-axis alignments in sea ice has been a subject of debate since its initial discovery in 1959. Although numerous theories have been proposed for its development, none has been able to account for all of its field characteristics.

A detailed field investigation was carried out at Pond Inlet, N.W.T., to describe further the occurrence and structure of this ice type. Data collected over the winter of 1983–84 suggest two possible mechanisms of development. The first involves the selective growth of crystals during the formation of the initial ice skim, while the second requires the solid-state rotation of slip planes during constrained plastic deformation.

The nature of icebergs calved from Svalbard’s 1030 km of tide-water ice cliffs is related to glacier dynamics and morphology. Both iceberg dimensions and rates of relative iceberg production are affected. Valley tide-water glaciers entering fjords typically calve irregular icebergs of <50 m in length. Ice caps and large outlet glaciers, which predominate in eastern Svalbard, yield small, irregular icebergs and large (>500 m length) tabular icebergs which can travel considerable distances before melting. Surge-type ice masses calve very large numbers of small icebergs during short periods of rapid advance, but few icebergs during longer periods of stagnation and retreat between surges. The nature of iceberg interactions with sea ice also influences the timing and pattern of iceberg production. Winter shore-fast ice traps icebergs close to tide-water ice cliffs. They are released as a pulse on spring-time fast-ice break-up. Pack ice damps waves, and therefore increases iceberg stability and reduces the frequency of overturn. Small icebergs often undergo complete melting and sediment release within fjords. Larger icebergs can be trapped close to glacier termini by shallow bedrock or morainic sills, but some larger, tabular icebergs do escape into the Barents Sea. Implications for iceberg rafting of sediments include the production of large numbers of relatively debris-rich icebergs during surges and the absence of floating ice masses. The latter restricts the loss of debris-rich basal ice by undermelt prior to calving.

Between 3 June 1982 and 8 July 1985, a stake net consisting of up to 32 stakes covering the greater part of Storglaciären was surveyed 70 times, yielding roughly 2000 separate determinations of vertical and horizontal velocity. The time interval between surveys averaged about 1 week during the summer and 2 months during the winter.

Horizontal velocities were normally highest during periods of high daily temperature or heavy rain early in the melt season. Comparable or sometimes higher temperatures or rainfalls later in the season usually had less effect, though minor velocity peaks were often present in August and early September. During periods for which bore-hole water-level measurements are available, velocity peaks generally coincided with periods of high basal water pressure, but not all periods of high water pressure resulted in velocity peaks. Despite increasing basal water pressures, velocity decreased gradually during the winter.

Vertical velocities also vary seasonally. Beneath the upper part of the ablation area the glacier bed is overdeepened. Vertical velocities here are ˜3 mm/d higher during the summer. Down-glacier from the overdeepening, vertical velocities are ˜1 mm/d lower during the summer. These and other characteristics of the vertical velocity pattern are best explained by appealing to: (1) a decrease in strain-rate with depth, and (2) seasonal variations in this depth-dependence.

Five periods of high velocity lasting from 3 to 11d were studied in detail. In an area where the bed is overdeepened, force-balance calculations suggest that basal drag decreased between 16 and 40% during these high-velocity events. This resulted in a decrease in compressive strain-rate at the up-glacier end of the overdeepening, an increase at the down-glacier end, and a slight increase in lateral shear strain-rates. Down-glacier from the overdeepening, basal drag increased during two events owing to an increased push from up-glacier and pull from down-glacier. Lateral shear strain-rates increased sharply here.

An equation for prediction of annual avalanche mass was tested on nine avalanche paths in the Kaghan area of the Himalaya in Pakistan. The predicted masses were compared to measured avalanche-deposit masses produced during two winters (1985–86, 1986–87). The results indicate that, while the annual mass of avalanches could be predicted relatively well on the very large paths in the study area, significant over- and underestimation occurs on other paths. The average yield coefficient, or proportion of snow in the catchment which avalanches, is 0.0991 m−3. This figure varies significantly between paths but generally less between two winters on any given path. More accurate determination of annual avalanche masses in the study area requires both improved measurements of the equation parameters, as well as refinement of the empirically derived yield coefficient to reflect better the terrain and winter climatic conditions in the region.

Annual ablation on Qamanârssûp sermia, West Greenland, varies with year and location. The time variation of ablation at any stake consists of climate signal and noise due to errors and local topography. Variations of ablation at different stakes are positively correlated with each other with inter-stake correlation coefficients depending on the relative magnitudes of climate signal and noise. Inter-stake correlations and noise are very sensitive to gross errors in the data, while climate signal is less sensitive. Low values of inter-stake correlations are used to detect suspect data, and elimination of such data reduces the noise standard deviation from ±0.40 to ±0.28 m water a−1 for 6 years of record compared with a climate signal of ±0.55 m water a−1. The climate signal on Qamanârssûp is positively correlated with summer mean temperature and negatively correlated with annual precipitation. This shows that even a sparse stake network as at Qamanârssûp sermia gives useful glacier-climate information which can be applied to studies of both glacier hydrology and greenhouse effect.

Bending shear was observed to produce nearly vertical shear bands in a calving ice wall standing on dry land on Deception Island (lat. 63.0°S., long. 60.6 W.), and slabs calved straight downward when shear rupture occurred along these shear bands (Hughes, 1989). A formula for the calving rate was developed from the Deception Island data, and we have attempted to justify generalizing this formula to include ice walls standing along beaches or in water. These are environments in which a wave-washed groove develops along the base of the ice wall or along a water line above the base. The rate of wave erosion provides an alternative mechanism for controlling the calving rate in these environments. We have determined that the rate at which bending creep produces nearly vertical shear bands, along which shear rupture occurs, controls the calving rate in all environments. Shear rupture occurs at a calving shear stress of about 1 bar. Our results justify using the calving formula to compute the calving rate of ice walls in computer models of ice-sheet dynamics. This is especially important in simulating retreat of Northern Hemisphere ice sheets during the last deglaciation, when marine and lacustrine environments were common along retreating ice margins. These margins would have been ice walls standing along beaches or in water, because floating ice shelves are not expected in the ablation zone of retreating ice sheets.

By comparing modelled and averaged satellite altimeter return, it is demonstrated that time profiles of altimeter return can be used to provide important information on the surface properties of the ice sheets. Altimeter ice-sheet radar echoes from low altitudes and/or relatively low latitudes are, in general, dominated by surface scattering and, in Greenland, the area of surface-dominated return broadly coincides with the zone of summer melting. Seasonal variations in the echo wave-form shapes are negligible in all regions studied, with the possible exception of an area near the margin of the Greenland dry-snow zone. In general, the model explains well the observed variations in mean wave-form shape, but small discrepances between the model wave forms and the recorded wave forms indicate that sub-surface layers may be influencing the shape of the return. The possibility of deriving quantitative estimates of surface properties is explored by fitting model returns to averaged altimeter wave forms from the Wilkes Land plateau in Antarctica. Surface roughness can be measured unambiguously from the wave-form data, but estimations of other parameters, such as grain-size, snow density, and snow temperature are found to be ambiguous because different surface parameters have a similar influence on the shape of the return. Despite this, the derived estimates compare well with ground-based observations and suggest that the satellite altimeter may have an important role to play in providing information on the surface properties of the ice sheets.

Four medial moraines on three glaciers in Jotunheimen, Norway, are described. The structure and debris characteristics of the moraines allow three debris-transport routes to be identified: (1) discrete concentrated longitudinal septa containing subglacially comminuted debris; (2) diffuse longitudinal septa containing passively englacially transported debris; and (3) supraglacially transported spreads containing rock-fall debris entrained below the firn line. Two of the moraines, occurring down-glacier of nunataks, are nourished by a combination of (1) and (3). The remaining two moraines are nourished solely by englacially transported rock-fall debris (2). Transport routes (1) and (2) represent two distinct types of longitudinal englacial debris septum. The contribution of debris from more than one glacial transport path to single medial moraines indicates the value of a flexible, process-based approach towards moraine classification, with emphasis on the dynamic links between basin morphology, glacial debris entrainment, and moraine characteristics.

White synchrotron X-radiation topography has been used to observe the motion of dislocations in single crystals of ice under a compressive stress in the [1100] direction, for which there is no resolved stress on the basal plane. Dislocations with [1210] and [2110] Burgers vectors were nucleated from surface scratches, and their edge components were observed to glide on non-basal planes, which may be prismatic or may have unspecific pyramidal character. Screw components are not mobile on such planes.