A Quick Introduction to Glaciers and Glacial Landscapes

The study of glaciers is important not only for explaining how landscapes are created, but also for understanding global issues such as climate change and sea-level rise. This book examines the characteristics of glaciers, explores how they shape the landscape, and explains their role in the unfolding drama of global environmental change. It also considers the impact of glaciers on human activity, and the potential impact of humans on the future growth or melting of the world's ice. The aim of the book is to provide a quick, straightforward introduction to glaciers and glacial landscapes. It is intended for people who have very little background knowledge in the subject, and is pitched very much at an introductory level. Given the importance of glaciers in the global environmental system it is surprising that they come and go in the teaching syllabus. For a few years, lots of students are studying glaciers at school, then for a few years nobody is doing glaciers and everybody is studying rivers instead. Teachers who perhaps did not study glaciers at university suddenly find that a curriculum change at school leaves them having to teach glaciers to their own students. Students at university find that they have to deal with glaciers at degree level even though they never studied them at school. University lecturers find that the students just enrolled on what was intended as a degree-level glaciers module have no background at all in the subject. And members of the general public who just want to find out a little bit about glaciers discover that the only books available are either coffee-table books with no real information or advanced texts intended for people who already have some expertise. This little book throws itself into that picture with the aim of helping all those readers!