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Anisotropic Ice Flow

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  • First Online:
Encyclopedia of Snow, Ice and Glaciers

Part of the book series: Encyclopedia of Earth Sciences Series ((EESS))

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Definition

Anisotropy. A material is anisotropic if it has a response that differs according to the direction of the loading.

Ice anisotropy. In this article, we focus on the viscous part of the ice deformation. Elastic response of ice is also anisotropic but much less pronounced than its viscous part.

Introduction

The size of an ice crystal varies from few millimeters to few tens of centimeters, whereas the typical size of a glacier or an ice sheet is few kilometers to thousands of kilometers. The strong viscous anisotropy of the ice crystal and the way the crystals are orientated influence the flow of glaciers and ice sheets. This article explains how these very different scales are related and coupled, leading to special features that can only be explained by an anisotropic behavior.

Anisotropy of the ice crystal

Terrestrial ice presents a hexagonal symmetry that induces a strong viscous anisotropic behavior. The principal mechanism responsible for the crystal deformation is the...

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Bibliography

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratoire de Glaciologie et Géophysique de l'Environnement, 54, rue Molière BP 96, 38402, CNRS/UJF, Grenoble, France

    Olivier Gagliardini

Authors
  1. Olivier Gagliardini
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Olivier Gagliardini .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas, USA

    Vijay P. Singh

  2. New Delhi, India

    Pratap Singh

  3. University of Dayton, Dayton, Ohio, USA

    Umesh K. Haritashya

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© 2011 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.

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Gagliardini, O. (2011). Anisotropic Ice Flow. In: Singh, V.P., Singh, P., Haritashya, U.K. (eds) Encyclopedia of Snow, Ice and Glaciers. Encyclopedia of Earth Sciences Series. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-2642-2_658

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