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Iceland as seen from space, with Vatnajökull appearing as the largest white area to the lower right. Vatnajökull (Icelandic pronunciation: [ˈvahtnaˌjœːkʏtl̥] ⓘ, literally "Glacier of Lakes"; sometimes translated as Vatna Glacier in English) is the largest and most voluminous ice cap in Iceland, and the second largest in area in Europe after the Severny Island ice cap of Novaya Zemlya ...
Ice caps accumulate snow on their upper surfaces, and ablate snow on their lower surfaces. [6] An ice cap in equilibrium accumulates and ablates snow at the same rate. The AAR is the ratio between the accumulation area and the total area of the ice cap, which is used to indicate the health of the glacier. [6]
Austfonna is an ice cap located on Nordaustlandet in the Svalbard archipelago in Norway. Covering an area of 7,800 km 2, [1] it is Europe's third-largest glacier by area and volume, after the Severny Island ice cap of Novaya Zemlya, Russia, and Vatnajökull in Iceland. [2] The combined area of Austfonna and the Vegafonna ice cap is 8,492 km 2. [3]
An ice cap is a mass of glacial ice that covers less than 50,000 km 2 (19,000 sq mi) of land area covering a highland area and they feed outlet glaciers. [4]: 52 Many Icelandic ice caps and glaciers lie above volcanoes, such as Grímsvötn and Bárðarbunga, which lie under the largest ice cap, Vatnajökull.
Langjökull (Icelandic pronunciation: [ˈlauŋkˌjœːkʏtl̥] ⓘ, Icelandic for "long glacier") is the second largest ice cap in Iceland (870 km 2 (340 sq mi)), [1] after Vatnajökull. It is situated in the west of the Icelandic interior or Highlands of Iceland and can be seen clearly from Haukadalur .
Glaciers often form on the edges of ice fields, serving as gravity-propelled drains off the ice field which is in turn replenished by snowfall. While an ice cap is not constrained by topography, an ice field is. An ice field is also distinguishable from an ice cap because it does not have a dome-like form. [2]
An ice cap climate is a polar climate where no mean monthly temperature exceeds 0 °C (32 °F). The climate generally covers areas at high altitudes and polar regions (60–90° north and south latitude), such as Antarctica and some of the northernmost islands of Canada and Russia .
The term nunatak is typically used in areas where a permanent ice sheet is present and the ridge protrudes above the sheet. [6] Nunataks present readily identifiable landmark reference points in glaciers or ice caps and are often named. While some are isolated, they can also form dense clusters, such as Queen Louise Land in Greenland. [7]