Week 2: Ice

Lecture 1: Glaciers (Dr Kelvin Michael)
Overview of the hydrological cycle. Concept of snow line. Accumulation and ablation. Glaciers: description, geomorphology - landforms and deposits, some examples of temperate glaciation. Glaciers in Antarctica, crevasses (Mawson - Ninnis and Mertz), glacier tongues, ice bergs. Ice berg drift.

Lecture 2: Ice Sheets (Dr Kelvin Michael)
Ice caps: description, flow lines, basic explanation of age of ice and potential for coring to reveal historical trends. Antarctic ice sheet characteristics, ice shelves. Glaciology: boreholes, traverses, canes, ice radar, .. Ice coring in Antarctica, techniques for palaeoclimatic analysis. Palaeotemperatures and other information. Ice core analyses in Greenland and other locations. Lake Vostok and proposed access.

Lecture 3: Sea Ice (Dr Kelvin Michael)
Freezing of the ocean. Formation paths for sea ice in calm conditions (nilas) and turbulent conditions (pancakes). Fast ice, annual cycle, variations in extent. Pack ice, various categories, role of snow, snow-ice formation. Annual cycle of pack ice extent, patterns of fast ice concentration and thickness, pack ice drift. Shackleton's expedition in Weddell Sea.

Tutorial: Retreat of temperate glaciers, calculations of snow line, extent of Tasmanian glaciation.