Glaciology first emerged as a science in the Swiss Alps, where most of the first glaciologists lived. Since then glaciologists from several countries, particularly from the First World, have made notable contributions to the discipline. Many glaciologists have backgrounds in geology, physics and climatology.
Name | Birth | Death | Contributions |
---|---|---|---|
Louis Agassiz | 1807 | 1873 | First to scientifically propose the existence of past ice ages |
Jens Esmark | 1763 | 1839 | Extension of past glaciations |
Jón Eyþórsson | 1898 | 1968 | Long-term observation and measurement of glacier margins in Iceland |
Andrea Fischer | 1973 | Dynamics of climate change on the surface and subsurface of glaciers | |
James David Forbes | 1809 | 1868 | Concluded that glaciers were viscous bodies |
Louis Lliboutry | 1922 | 2007 | Formation of penitentes, surveyed Andean glaciers |
Mark Meier | 2012 | Expert on sea level rise due to melting glaciers; Director of the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research (INSTAAR) from 1985 to 1994. [1] | |
Ukichiro Nakaya | 1900 | 1962 | Studied Tyndall figures, created first artificial snowflakes |
Louis Rendu | 1789 | 1859 | Theorized on glacier motion |
Valter Schytt | 1919 | 1985 | Studied Storglaciären in northern Sweden |
Wilhelm Sievers | 1860 | 1921 | Documented South American ice ages |
Sigurður Þórarinsson | 1912 | 1983 | |
John Tyndall | 1820 | 1893 | Studied glacier motion |
Ignaz Venetz | 1788 | 1859 | Suggested the existence of past ice ages |
Barbeau Peak is a mountain in Qikiqtaaluk, Nunavut, Canada. Located on Ellesmere Island within Quttinirpaaq National Park, it is the highest mountain in Nunavut and the Canadian Arctic. The mountain was named in 1969 after Marius Barbeau, a Canadian anthropologist whose research into First Nations and Inuit cultures gained him international acclaim.
Concordia Research Station, which opened in 2005, is a French–Italian research facility that was built 3,233 m (10,607 ft) above sea level at a location called Dome C on the Antarctic Plateau, Antarctica. It is located 1,100 km (680 mi) inland from the French research station at Dumont D'Urville, 1,100 km (680 mi) inland from Australia's Casey Station and 1,200 km (750 mi) inland from the Italian Zucchelli Station at Terra Nova Bay. Russia's Vostok Station is 560 km (350 mi) away. The Geographic South Pole is 1,670 km (1,040 mi) away. The facility is also located within Australia's claim on Antarctica, the Australian Antarctic Territory.
The International Glaciological Society (IGS) was founded in 1936 to provide a focus for individuals interested in glaciology, practical and scientific aspects of snow and ice. It was originally known as the "Association for the Study of Snow and Ice". The name was changed to the "British Glaciological Society" in 1945. With more and more non-British glaciologists attending its readings and submitting papers for publication, the name was changed to the "Glaciological Society" in 1962 and finally the Society acquired its present name in 1971. The IGS publishes the Journal of Glaciology, Annals of Glaciology and ICE, the news bulletin of the IGS; the Journal of Glaciology won the ALPSP/Charlesworth Award for the "Best Learned Journal of 2007".
The Norwegian–British–Swedish Antarctic Expedition (1949–1952) was the first Antarctica expedition involving an international team of scientists. The team members came from Norway, Sweden and the British Commonwealth of Nations.
Jackson Glacier is approximately the seventh largest of the remaining 25 glaciers in Glacier National Park located in the US state of Montana. A part of the largest grouping of glaciers in the park, Jackson Glacier rests on the north side of Mount Jackson. The glacier was most recently measured in 2005 at 250 acres (1.0 km2), yet when first documented in 1850, the glacier also included the now separate Blackfoot Glacier and together, they covered 1,875 acres (7.59 km2). Between 1966 and 2005, Jackson Glacier lost almost a third of its acreage. When the two glaciers were united prior to their separation sometime before 1929, they were known simply as Blackfoot Glacier.
Agassiz Glacier is in Glacier National Park in the U.S. state of Montana. It is named after Louis Agassiz, a Swiss-American glaciologist. The glacier is situated in a cirque to the southeast of Kintla Peak west of the Continental Divide. Agassiz Glacier is one of several glaciers that have been selected for monitoring by the U.S. Geological Survey's Glacier Monitoring Research program, which is researching changes to the mass balance of glaciers in and surrounding Glacier National Park.
Haefeli Glacier is a glacier, 2 miles (3 km) wide and 6 miles (10 km) long, situated on Pernik Peninsula, Loubet Coast in Graham Land, Antarctica, at the northwest side of Finsterwalder Glacier and flowing south-southwest toward the head of Lallemand Fjord. With Finsterwalder and Klebelsberg Glaciers, its mouth merges with Sharp Glacier where the latter enters the fjord. It was first surveyed in 1946–47 by the Falkland Islands Dependencies Survey and named by them for Robert Haefeli, a Swiss glaciologist.
Finsterwalder Glacier is a glacier on the northwest side of Hemimont Plateau, 2 nautical miles wide and 10 nautical miles long, flowing southwest from the central plateau of Graham Land, Antarctica, toward the head of Lallemand Fjord. Its mouth lies between the mouths of Haefeli Glacier and Klebelsberg Glacier, the three glaciers merging with Sharp Glacier where the latter enters the fjord. It was first surveyed from the plateau in 1946–47 by the Falkland Islands Dependencies Survey, and named by them for Sebastian Finsterwalder and his son, Richard Finsterwalder, German glaciologists.
Kamb Ice Stream, a glaciological feature of the Ross Ice Shelf of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, formerly known as Ice Stream C, the ice stream was renamed in 2001 in honor of Caltech Glaciologist Dr. Barclay Kamb. Its margins were the focus of a sequence of scientific borehole expeditions in 2019 and 2021 where a New Zealand team melted their way through the ice to sample the oceanographic conditions below.
DeBreuck Glacier is a glacier, 8 nautical miles (15 km) long, which is a southern tributary to Kent Glacier in the Queen Elizabeth Range. It was mapped by the United States Geological Survey from tellurometer surveys and Navy air photos, 1960–62, and was named by the Advisory Committee on Antarctic Names for William DeBreuck, a United States Antarctic Research Program (USARP) Belgian glaciologist at the South Pole Station, 1962–63.
Demorest Glacier is a glacier on the northeast side of Hemimont Plateau which flows southeast into Whirlwind Inlet between Flint Glacier and Matthes Glacier, on the east coast of Graham Land. It was discovered by Sir Hubert Wilkins on a flight of December 20, 1928, and photographed from the air by the United States Antarctic Service in 1940. It was charted by the Falkland Islands Dependencies Survey in 1947 and named for Max H. Demorest, an American glaciologist.
Field Glacier is a glacier on Pernik Peninsula, Loubet Coast in Graham Land, situated south of Salmon Cove, and flowing west into Lallemand Fjord just south of Kanchov Peak. It was mapped from air photos taken by the Falkland Islands and Dependencies Aerial Survey Expedition, 1956–57. In association with the names of glaciologists grouped in this area, it was named by the UK Antarctic Place-Names Committee after William B.O. Field, an American glaciologist and surveyor, sometime Research Fellow of the American Geographical Society.
Flint Glacier is a glacier which flows south into Whirlwind Inlet between Demorest Glacier and Cape Northrop, on the east coast of Graham Land, Antarctica. It was discovered by Sir Hubert Wilkins on his flight of December 20, 1928, and photographed from the air by the United States Antarctic Service in 1940. It was charted in 1947 by the Falkland Islands Dependencies Survey, who named it for glaciologist Richard F. Flint, professor of geology at Yale University.
Gourdon Glacier is a glacier 4 nautical miles (7 km) long on the east side of James Ross Island, flowing southeast into Markham Bay between Saint Rita Point and Rabot Point. It has a conspicuous rock wall at its head. The glacier was first surveyed by the Swedish Antarctic Expedition under Otto Nordenskiöld, 1901–04, who named it for Ernest Gourdon, geologist and glaciologist of the French Antarctic Expedition, 1903–05.
Heim Glacier is a glacier 8 nautical miles (15 km) long in the southeast part of Arrowsmith Peninsula, which flows south to merge with the ice in Jones Channel on the west coast of Graham Land, Antarctica. With Antevs Glacier to the north, it forms a transverse depression extending to the southwest part of Lallemand Fjord. Heim Glacier was first sighted from the air in 1936 by the British Graham Land Expedition under John Rymill. Its lower reaches were surveyed in 1949 by the Falkland Islands Dependencies Survey, and the glacier named by them for Albert Heim, a Swiss glaciologist and the author in 1885 of Handbuch der Gletscherkunde.
Hobbs Glacier is a glacier situated in a steep, rock-walled cirque at the northwest side of Hamilton Point, and flowing southeast into the southern part of Markham Bay on the east coast of James Ross Island, Antarctica. It was first seen and surveyed by the Swedish Antarctic Expedition, 1901–04, under Otto Nordenskiöld, who named it for Professor William H. Hobbs, an American geologist and glaciologist.
Hess Glacier is a glacier 5 nautical miles long, flowing east-northeast between steep rock walls to its terminus 10 nautical miles southwest of Monnier Point, on the east coast of Graham Land, Antarctica. It was charted in 1947 by the Falkland Islands Dependencies Survey, who named it for Hans Hess, a German glaciologist.
Saussure Glacier is a glacier flowing northeast from Tyndall Mountains, Arrowsmith Peninsula, into Lallemand Fjord, Loubet Coast. Photographed from the air by Falkland Islands and Dependencies Aerial Survey Expedition (FIDASE) in 1957. Named by the United Kingdom Antarctic Place-Names Committee (UK-APC) in association with the names of glaciologists grouped in the area after Horace-Bénédict de Saussure (1740–99), Genevan naturalist and physicist, who in 1787 was the first to recognize that erratic boulders had been moved great distances by ice.
William Stanley Bryce (Stan) Paterson was a leading British glaciologist. He mined glacial cores which then provided climate data for the world's last 100,000 years.
A P-form is a smoothed depression eroded by ice into bedrock. Three classes of P-form are recognised: transverse forms, longitudinal forms and non-directional forms and each of these are further subdivided on the basis of their shape. They are present on scales from tens of centimetres to several kilometres. The term was introduced in 1965 by glaciologist R Dahl though questioned by later authors with Kor introducing the term S-form in 1991. Their origin is still debated but include i) the presence of debris within the base of moving ice, ii) of saturated till trapped between the base of a glacier and the bedrock, iii) of subglacial meltwater under pressure and iv) a mix of ice and water.