An experimental study of ice deformation at the confluence area of Unteraargletscher, Bernese Alps, Switzerland, has been carried out. Surface velocities were measured by repeatedly surveying stakes and with the use of remote-sensing methods. The variation of the vertical strain rates with depth was measured in boreholes. The confluence center line is subjected to longitudinal horizontal extension, which is exceeded in magnitude by a concomitant transverse compression. Vertical strain rates change from positive (extension) at the surface to negative (compression) in the lowest layers of the glacier.

An analysis of hundreds of mountain and valley glaciers in the former Soviet Union and the Alps shows that characteristic glacier widths scale as characteristic glacier lengths raised to an exponent of 0.6. This is in contrast to most previous analyses which implicitly of explicitly assumed scaling exponents of either 0 or 1. The exponent 0.6 implies that average glacier widths are proportional to average glacier thicknesses. Although this seems to suggest V-shaped glacier valleys, the linear width-thickness relationship is not inconsistent with parabolic valley cross-sections, because the characteristic (or average) width of a glacier depends on many other aspects of channel and glacier morphology, including variations in the channel width with distance up- and downstream.

This pilot study adopts a computer-assisted synoptic typing methodology to evaluate the totality of climatic influences on snow- and ice-melt dynamics within a small cirque basin in the French Pyrénées. The synoptic categories identified possess contrasting large-scale atmospheric circulation patterns and surface energy budgets which generate differential ablation responses. Continental air masses yield consistently high melt. Advection of moist maritime air also produces elevated but more variable ablation due to air-mass transitions. The two observed local valley circulation types show melt to be higher under nocturnal katabatic drainage than for anabatic wind flows associated with development of daytime ridge-top cumulus.

A series of 40 impact tests was conducted an large right-circular cylinders (68.5 cm diameter and 25.7 cm thickness) of iceberg ice collected from an iceberg in Labrador. Temperature profiles were also obtained for the iceberg and the profiles exhibited differences associated with the probe location. Temperatures as low as –15°C were measured at penetration depths of about 8 m. The impact specimens were confined at the perimeter and base by a rigid metallic ring and plate. A spherically terminated impactor, with center-mounted pressure transducer, was dropped on to the flat top surface of specimens from various heights and with various added masses. Impact velocity varied from 1.8 to 3.9 m s−1; impactor mass varied from 155 to 510 kg and the ice-specimen temperature varied from –0.5° to –14.5°C. Peak center pressures averaged from about 25 MPa at the highest temperature to about 41 MPa at the lowest temperature, with the highest recorded pressure being 50 M Pa. Crater volume increased with increasing impact energy, as expected; however, the specific energy of the ejected material was found to decrease as the energy of impact and crater volume increased. A mechanism for this observed behaviour is proposed.

Glaciological investigations were carried out in 1994 on the glaciers in Hidden Valley, Mukut Himal, Nepal Himalayas, in order to make a comparison with observations made in 1974. Most of the glaciers were found to have retreated by 30–60 m in terminus elevation over the 20 years between the two studies. Rikha Samba Glacier, the longest glacier in the valley, has retreated by about 200m. The areal average of the amount of surface lowering and the volume loss of the glacier was estimated to be 12.6 m ice equivalent and 13% of the total mass, respectively. The annual mass balance of −0.35 m a−1 water equivalent was obtained as an average for 20 years, which is one of the largest negative values amongst small glaciers of the world.