Session Announcement and Call for Abstracts
Glacier and Ice Sheet Hydrology: Processes in Sub-glacial Environments
American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting
14-18 December 2009
San Francisco, California
Abstract Submission Deadline: Thursday, 3 September 2009
For further information, please contact:
Stefan Vogel
Email: svogel [at] geol.niu.edu
Michael Studinger
Email: mstuding [at] ldeo.columbia.edu
Organizers of Session C08, "Glacier and Ice Sheet Hydrology: Processes
in Sub-glacial Environments," announce a call for abstracts. The session
will be convened at the American Geophysical Union (AGU) Fall Meeting,
14-18 December 2009, in San Francisco, California.
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
sub-glacial lakes. These connections, although similar to those beneath
smaller ice masses, apparently transfer waters in a flood-like behavior.
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. Session
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,
modeling, 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. Organizers call for papers in four main
areas:
- Recent advances in the hydrology of cold-, polythermal-, and
warm-based alpine glaciers;
- The hydrology of the margins of ice caps and ice sheets;
- Ecohydrology of glaciers and ice sheets; and
- New methods and technologies to study glacier hydrology.
Second, organizers solicit scientific contributions that relate to the
complex relationship between hydrological, mechanical, and
thermodynamical processes in subglacial environments, especially those
beneath ice sheets. To this end, organizers are particularly interested
in papers relating to:
- Field-based observations of basal processes in different
glacio-dynamic environments;
- 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.
The abstract submission deadline for this and all other sessions is
Thursday, 3 September 2009, at 11:59 pm Eastern Daylight Time. To submit
an abstract, you must enter the first author's current AGU member ID and
password at: http://agu-fm09.abstractcentral.com/.
For further information, please contact:
Stefan Vogel
Email: svogel [at] geol.niu.edu
Michael Studinger
Email: mstuding [at] ldeo.columbia.edu
Martyn Tranter
Email: m.tranter [at] bristol.ac.uk