Glaciology

Glaciology is the study of glaciers and other forms of ice, including ice sheets, sea ice and permafrost, and of the physical processes that govern their formation, flow and melting. Glaciologists measure ice thickness, flow velocity and mass balance to understand how glaciers respond to climate, and ice cores drilled from polar ice sheets and mountain glaciers preserve trapped air bubbles and chemical signatures that provide some of the most detailed records of past climate available to science, extending back hundreds of thousands of years in the longest Antarctic cores. The discipline has become central to monitoring modern climate change, since glacier and ice sheet loss is both a sensitive indicator of warming and a major contributor to sea level rise.