Now in its 4e, this classic text covers the physical principles underlying the behavior of glaciers -- terrestrial ice bodies originating as accumulations of snow -- including mountain glaciers, small ice caps, ice sheets, and shelves. New material on climate change includes interactions between ice sheets and the ocean and atmosphere, paleoclimate reconstruction using ice cores, Quaternary climate history and the ice ages, and sea level rise. The book also explores topics of interest to geologists and geophysicists, including glacial connections to geomorphology, sedimentation, isostasy, and tectonics.

1. Introduction 2. Transformation of Snow to Ice 3. Grain-Scale Structures and Deformation of Ice 4. Mass Balance Processes: Overview and Regimes 5. Mass Balance Processes: Surface Ablation and Energy Budget 6. Glacial Hydrology 7. Basal Slip 8. The Flow of Ice Masses 9. Temperatures in Ice Masses 10. Large-Scale Structures 11. Reaction of Glaciers to Environmental Changes 12. Glacier Surges 13. Ice Sheets and the Earth System 14. Ice, Sea Level, and Contemporary Climate Change 15. Ice Core Studies

The Physics of Glaciers, Fourth Edition, discusses the physical principles that underlie the behavior and characteristics of glaciers. The term glacier refers to all bodies of ice created by the accumulation of snowfall, e.g., mountain glaciers, ice caps, continental ice sheets, and ice shelves. Glaciology-the study of all forms of ice-is an interdisciplinary field encompassing physics, geology, atmospheric science, mathematics, and others. This book covers various aspects of glacier studies, including the transformation of snow to ice, grain-scale structures and ice deformation, mass exchange processes, glacial hydrology, glacier flow, and the impact of climate change. The present edition features two new chapters: "Ice Sheets and the Earth System” and "Ice, Sea Level, and Contemporary Climate Change.” The chapter on ice core studies has been updated from the previous version with new material. The materials on the flow of mountain glaciers, ice sheets, ice streams, and ice shelves have been combined into a single chapter entitled "The Flow of Ice Masses.”