ICE Flashcards
During the last ice age what was sea level relative to today?
In the last ice age sea level was 120m lower than today.
Changes in the seasonal and latitudinal patterns of insolation can be explained how?
Using gravitational effects of Milankovitch theory:
Eccentricity
Obliquity
Precession
Explain what is eccentricity?
- How elliptical is the orbit?
- Change in orbit from elliptical to circular
- 100,000 years cyclicity
Explain what is obliquity?
- How titled is the Earths’ axis of rotation?
- Change in angle relative to the celestial plane
- Varies from 21.8 to 24.4°, currently 23°
- 40,000 years
Explain what is precession
- How close to the perihelion is the solstice?
- Perihelion is the point where the Earth is closest to the Sun
- Solstice is the longest or shortest day of the year
- 21,000 years
An increase in albedo by increase in ice cover will do what?
create a positive feeback mechanism, and a continued decrease in T
What allows us to infer past climates?
Isotope analysis from ice cores:
Ice sheets are O-16 rich and ocean sediments are O-18 rich
(Refer to climate)
At what age to ice cores stop?
~800,000 yrs
What does sea floor sediment analysis show happened at around 800,000 yrs ago?
A transition from dominance of Obliquity to dominance of Eccentricity
What’s the difference between how glaciology has been and is now being understood?
- Was originally Geologically based before becoming Geographical and then finally Mathematical
- Becomes more quantitative with the introduction of classical mechanics into glaciology
How is ice deformed?
- Ice is a solid but will deform if large stresses are applied over large periods of time via three mechanisms
- Ice deformation (happens all the time)
- Basal Sliding (needs water at glacier base)
- Deformation of basal sediments (needs water at glacier base)

How is mathematics applied to ice flow mechanisms?
- Algorithms can be applied to describe ice flow mechanisms which can then be put into the Ice Continuity Equation, which allows ice sheets to be modelled
What is glacial isostacy?
- Crustal subsidence under the weight of the ice sheet above
- Melt this ice and the crust shall rebound through isostasy
What are the forms of glacier motion?
- Deformation of the ice itself
- Sliding at the bed
- Deforming subglacial substrate
How is the ice itself deformed?
- It’s a solid but if large stresses are applied over large periods of time it will deform
- Zero Deformation at the base, greatest velocity at the top
During the deformation of subglacial substrate where is the maximum deformation take place?
- Maximum deformation at the ice-bed interface due to decoupling at the base
- This needs water
What are the rheological properties of ice?
- Ice was first thought of as a perfect plastic
- Only true for large stresses
- Very little change in strain rate for little change in shear stress
- At a certain yield stress, you obtain enormous levels of strain rate
- Actually approximates to a Newtonian Viscous fluid at low stresses
- Application of shear stress results in linear increase in strain rate
What is Glens flow law?
- A is related to temperature and impurities (flow law constant)
- A=A0 exp(-Q/RT)
- As T increases, so does A (A is v. sensitive to T)
- n is a constant approximately equal to 3
- t is the effective shear stress (measure of the overall stress regime)
- E* is the effective strain rate
- Doesn’t fully describe the flow rate of ice
- And its not really a law, its a power law
What is the shear stress at the bed during pure ice deformation?
- Shear Stress at the bed tb
- p is the density of the ice
- g is the acceleration due to gravity
- h is the ice thickness
- a is the angle of the surface slope
What assumptions are made during pure ice deformation?
- Assumptions made:
- No basal sliding
- Flat bed
- Single value for flow parameters
- No constraints by the valley walls
How do we measure the velocity of the ice during pure ice deformation?
Us = Ub + (2A / (n+1)) (pg sinα)n hn+1
- Ub is 0 (assume no basal sliding)
- Us proportional to h4
- Us proportional to α3
How does the velocity of ice change across an ice sheet?
- Zero Velocity of ice at the origin (ice divide)
- As you increase distance from the ice divide, velocity will increase pseudo-exponentially
- A particle of ice will take 150,000 years to travel from 50 km to the end of the ice
- Most of this time is spent getting to 300 km
Why is basal sliding so important, and the flow of ice isn’t as simple as demostrated by Glens flow law?

- In valleys, ice movement is constrained at the valley walls meaning flow is slower here
Describe the effects of water on basal sliding
- Distribution and pressure of water at glacier beds are the most important factors in regulating short term velocity fluctuations and glacier surge cycles
- Increased water velocity after increased precipitation increases water pressure
- Leads to enhanced sliding










