Dynamics of Ice Sheets and Glaciers

Download or read book Dynamics of Ice Sheets and Glaciers written by Ralf Greve and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2009-08-07 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dynamics of Ice Sheets and Glaciers presents an introduction to the dynamics and thermodynamics of flowing ice masses on Earth. Based on an outline of general continuum mechanics, the different initial-boundary-value problems for the flow of ice sheets, ice shelves, ice caps and glaciers are systematically derived. Special emphasis is put on developing hierarchies of approximations for the different systems, and suitable numerical solution techniques are discussed. A separate chapter is devoted to glacial isostasy. The book is appropriate for graduate courses in glaciology, cryospheric sciences, environmental sciences, geophysics and related fields. Standard undergraduate knowledge of mathematics (calculus, linear algebra) and physics (classical mechanics, thermodynamics) provide a sufficient background for successfully studying the text.