Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
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 ...
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]
Based on the Köppen climate classification, Icecap Peak is located in the marine west coast climate zone of western North America. [5] Most weather fronts originate in the Pacific Ocean, and travel east toward the Coast Mountains where they are forced upward by the range (orographic lift), causing them to drop their moisture in the form of rain or snowfall.
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]
The ice cap was mapped during the 1952–54 British North Greenland expedition led by Commander James Simpson. It was named in honor of the Royal Air Force in order to commemorate the air transport supplied to the expedition. The name "Adastra Ice Cap" had been suggested by Brian Roberts, but finally "Ad Astra Ice Cap" became the approved name. [2]
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 .