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With an area of 7,700 km 2, [3] Vatnajökull is the second largest ice cap in Europe by volume (about 3,000 km 3) [1] and area (after the still larger Severny Island ice cap of Novaya Zemlya, Russia, which is in the extreme northeast of Europe). [1] On 7 June 2008, it became a part of the Vatnajökull National Park. [4]
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.
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]
Polar deserts are the regions of Earth that fall under an ice cap climate (EF under the Köppen classification). Despite rainfall totals low enough to normally classify as a desert , polar deserts are distinguished from true deserts ( BWh or BWk under the Köppen classification) by low annual temperatures and evapotranspiration .
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 .
A polar ice cap or polar cap is a high-latitude region of a planet, dwarf planet, or natural satellite that is covered in ice. [ 1 ] There are no requirements with respect to size or composition for a body of ice to be termed a polar ice cap, nor any geological requirement for it to be over land, but only that it must be a body of solid phase ...
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]