Cryosphere glossary
a phenomenon in which strong reflection of the sun on an icy surface causes a glacier to look like it is on fire.
a fine powder of silt- and clay-sized particles that a glacier creates as its rock-laden ice scrapes over bedrock; usually flushed out in meltwater streams and causes water to look powdery gray; lakes and oceans that fill with glacier flour may develop a banded appearance; also called rock flour.
well-bonded ice crystals compacted from snow with a bulk density greater than 860 kilograms per cubic-meter (55 pounds per cubic-foot).
a nearly vertical channel in ice that is formed by flowing water; usually found after a relatively flat section of glacier in a region of transverse crevasses.
potholes formed at the bottom of glaciers through erosion caused by sand and gravel in melt-water; melt-water seeps through crevasses in the glaciers, sometimes forming whirpools; at the bottom of the glacier, the water is under very high pressure, leading to erosion of underlying rocks.
a glacier that is reconstructed or reconstituted out of other glacier material; usually formed by seracs falling from a hanging glacier, then re-adhering; also called reconstituted, reconstructed or regenerated glacier.
a rock that resides on a pedestal of ice; formed by differential ablation between the rock-covered ice and surrounding bare ice.
Image
Cairrar, archived at the World Data Center for Glaciology, Boulder, CO
u-shaped valleys transformed from v-shaped stream valleys due to erosion caused by passing glaciers.
a localized current of air occuring as a result of a glacier's melting processes; when the surface of glacial ice melts, the air above the glacier cools and becomes heavier than the surrounding air and flows down the glacial valley; glacier wind can also be wind that flows out of ice caves; a kind of katabatic wind.
land overlaid at present by a glacier is said to be covered; the alternative term glacierized has not found general favour.
a coating of ice, generally clear and smooth but usually containing some air pockets, formed on exposed objects by freezing of a film of super-cooled water deposited by rain, drizzle, fog, or possibly condensed from super-cooled water vapor; glaze is denser, harder and more transparent, than either rime or hoarfrost.
global network of observational stations which is the coordinated system of methods, techniques and facilities for making observations on a world-wide scale in the framework of the World Weather Watch, a World Meteorological Organization program.
the coordinated global system of telecommunication facilities and arrangements for the rapid collection, exchange and distribution of observational data in the framework of the World Weather Watch, a World Meteorological Organization program.