Call for Abstracts
Session C 20: Glacier and Ice Sheet Hydrology: Processes in Subglacial
Environments
American Geophysical Union (AGU) 2006 Fall Meeting
11-15 December 2006
San Francisco, California
Abstract Submission Deadlines:
Friday, 1 September 2006 (mail)
Thursday, 7 September 2006 (online)
For further information, please go to:
http://www.agu.org/meetings/fm06/?content=search&show=detail&sessid=242
You are invited to submit an abstract to the following special session
at this year's American Geophysical Union (AGU) Fall Meeting:
Session C 20: Glacier and Ice Sheet Hydrology: Processes in Subglacial
Environments
Session Description:
Water movement through and beneath glaciers and ice sheets is important
for a number of reasons. Glacier motion, glacial flooding, glacier mass
balance, sediment and chemical fluxes, and cryospheric ecosystems are
all dependant on glacier hydrology. Glacier hydrology has its roots in
the study of smaller ice masses, whose hydrologic features and models
can be scaled to larger ice masses. However, important differences also
exist. Extensive and thick layers of water are found under ice streams,
and there are hydrological connections between certain Antarctic
subglacial lakes. These connections, although similar to those beneath
smaller ice masses, apparently transfer waters in a flood-like
behaviour. Hence, there is a renewed interest in the definition of
subglacial environments and the processes which occur within them. A key
advance in the development of our understanding of ice sheet hydrology
and in the definition of subglacial environments is the use of remote
sensing and radio-echo sounding. These methods are currently mapping a
mosaic of interacting environments beneath the Antarctic Ice Sheet,
which are likely to vary in both space and time. Subglacial environments
are sculptured by interacting hydrological, mechanical, and
thermodynamical processes, which impact on bed properties and ice
motion. Organizers believe that this session will facilitate a better
understanding of ice sheet hydrology through the exchange of ideas
between glaciologists interested in basal processes, hydrology,
modelling, and geophysical methodologies.
The purpose of this large session is twofold. First, organizers wish to
bring together a broad cross section of scientists with general
interests in water movement on a variety of spatial scales across a
range of glacial environments. Papers are invited in the following main
areas: recent advances in the hydrology of cold-, polythermal- and
warm-based alpine glaciers; hydrology of the margins of ice caps and ice
sheets; and ecosystem-hydrology of glaciers and ice sheets and new
methods and technologies to study glacier hydrology. Second, scientific
contributions are solicited that relate to the complex relationship
between hydrological, mechanical, and thermodynamical processes in
subglacial environments, especially those beneath ice sheets. Organizers
are particularly interested in field-based observations of basal
processes in different glacio-dynamic environments, work on
parameterization of basal processes in numerical ice-flow models,
laboratory simulations of basal processes, storage and release of basal
water, and evolution of subglacial drainage systems, including
subglacial lakes.
Conveners:
Martyn Tranter
University of Bristol
E-mail: m.tranter [at] bristol.ac.uk
Andrew Fountain
Portland State University
E-mail: andrew [at] pdx.edu
Stefan Vogel
Northern Illinois University
E-mail: svogel [at] geol.niu.edu
Michael Studinger
Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory
E-mail: mstuding [at] ldeo.columbia.edu