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' study of ice ') is the scientific study of glaciers, or, more generally, ice and natural phenomena that involve ice. Glaciology is an interdisciplinary Earth science that integrates geophysics , geology , physical geography , geomorphology , climatology , meteorology , hydrology , biology , and ecology .
Glacier ice is slightly more dense than ice formed from frozen water because glacier ice contains fewer trapped air bubbles. Glacial ice has a distinctive blue tint because it absorbs some red light due to an overtone of the infrared OH stretching mode of the water molecule. (Liquid water appears blue for the same reason.
Greenland ice sheet as seen from space. An ice sheet is a body of ice which covers a land area of continental size - meaning that it exceeds 50,000 km 2. [4] The currently existing two ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica have a much greater area than this minimum definition, measuring at 1.7 million km 2 and 14 million km 2, respectively.
Ice is abundant on the Earth's surface, particularly in the polar regions and above the snow line, where it can aggregate from snow to form glaciers and ice sheets. As snowflakes and hail, ice is a common form of precipitation, and it may also be deposited directly by water vapor as frost.
Overview of the cryosphere and its larger components [1]. The cryosphere is an umbrella term for those portions of Earth's surface where water is in solid form. This includes sea ice, ice on lakes or rivers, snow, glaciers, ice caps, ice sheets, and frozen ground (which includes permafrost).
A glacial period (alternatively glacial or glaciation) is an interval of time (thousands of years) within an ice age that is marked by colder temperatures and glacier advances. Interglacials , on the other hand, are periods of warmer climate between glacial periods.
Erosional landforms. As the glaciers expand, due to their accumulating weight of snow and ice they crush, abrade, and scour surfaces such as rocks and bedrock.The resulting erosional landforms include striations, cirques, glacial horns, arêtes, trim lines, U-shaped valleys, roches moutonnées, overdeepenings and hanging valleys.
Glacial plucking is largely dependent on the amount of stress exerted on a clast overlain by glacial ice. This relationship is a balance between the shear stress exerted on the clast and the normal pressure on the clast by a body of ice. Plucking is increased where there are preexisting fractures in a rock bed.