Layer disturbances and the radio-echo free zone in ice sheets

Radio Echo Sounding of the Greenland Inland Ice

Radio echo sounding has been used for a number of years in the exploration of polar ice such as the inland ice in Greenland and Antarc­ tica. By means of this technique a number of important glaciological and geophysical parameters may be deter­ mined. Examples are ice thickness, bedrock topography and structure, stratification patterns which are used for climate and flow patterns studies, and ...

Ice Sheets and the Anthropocene

Ice could play a role in identifying and defining the Anthropocene. The recurrence of northern hemisphere glaciation and the stability of the Greenland Ice Sheet are both potentially vulnerable to human impact on the environment. However, only a very long hiatus in either would be unusual in the context of the Quaternary Period, requiring the definition of a geological boundary. Human influence...

Ice sheets and nitrogen.

Snow and ice play their most important role in the nitrogen cycle as a barrier to land-atmosphere and ocean-atmosphere exchanges that would otherwise occur. The inventory of nitrogen compounds in the polar ice sheets is approximately 260 Tg N, dominated by nitrate in the much larger Antarctic ice sheet. Ice cores help to inform us about the natural variability of the nitrogen cycle at global an...

Ice-shelf buttressing and the stability of marine ice sheets

Ice-shelf buttressing and the stability of marinetype ice sheets are investigated numerically. Buttressing effects are analysed for a situation where a stable grounding line is located on a bed sloping upwards in the direction of flow. Such grounding-line positions are known to be unconditionally unstable in the absence of transverse flow variations. It is shown that ice-shelf buttressing can r...

Ice sheets and sea level.