What is Glaciology?

The cryosphere plays an important active and passive role in the climate system. On one hand the global ice and snow covered area varies on seasonal, interdecadal and millenial time scales modulating the radiation budget and hydrological cycle of the earth. On the other hand polar ice sheets and cold alpine glaciers represent unique archives of climatic change, which provide a multitude of information on paleoclimatic (temperature, precipitation, circulation) and paleoatmospheric (aerosol concentration, trace gas abundance) conditions.Both the reconstruction of ice sheet volume and the mass balance of glaciers by means of modelling, geophysical reconnaissance methods as well as field studies and the unraveling of climatic information stored in the ice matrix and in air bubble enclosures of polar ice cores are the main scientific objectives of the glaciology department at AWI.