Glacier Science and Environmental Change is a comprehensive reference work examining contemporary issues in glaciology and explores the interface between glacier science and environmental change, past, present, and future.
The study of glaciers has immense significance for understanding and predicting global environmental change. The planet’s glaciers are major players in the unfolding drama of the changing environment, and provide a wealth of information about how climate and other components of the Earth system have changed in the past.
Scientists from different fields have begun to come together in their common interest in glaciers and the Earth’s changing environment, and to recognize the increasing importance of interdisciplinary understanding in this area. The rate and scale of progress, however, has meant that researchers and students in fields such as glaciology, Quaternary studies, sedimentology and environmental science find it more and more difficult to keep
abreast of the subject as a whole, and to recognize the key issues in areas outside their own specialism.
The purpose of this book is to provide a picture of current scientific understanding of key issues that relate the study of glaciers to the broader field of environmental change. The book presents not just the established common ground of the science, but also some of the uncertainty and controversy that accompanies progress in a dynamic and contested discipline. We invited contributors to provide their personal perspectives on important topics, and we have highlighted instances of controversy as indicators of the current scientific frontier. For instance, on topics generating debate, such as the role of meltwater in forming subglacial landscapes or the mechanisms of ice deformation within ice sheets, we have positioned papers by authors with opposing viewpoints side by side, enabling readers to assess contrasting arguments.
In cases where authors, referees, and the editor held differing opinions on specific matters, such as the nomenclature of Antarctic ice streams or data interpretations, we have generally respected the authors’ preferences. This book is not edited to present a consensus, but rather compiled to offer a snapshot of what various figures within the discipline deem significant.