Cold Environments Key Words

Question	Answer
Glacier	Tongue shaped mass of ice which moves downhill due to gravity
Fluvioglacial	Processes/Landforms associated with glacial meltwater
Ice Age	Period of time during which temperatures are cold and mostly covered with ice
Periglacial	Area surrounding the edge of a glacial area
Ice Sheets	Processes/landforms associated with fringe of or near to the ice sheet or glacier
Tundra	cold environment with sparse vegetation, located around the outside of the artic regions
Insolation	Energy received in the form of radiation from the sun by earth
Albedo	Sunlight reflected back out to space
Katabatic winds	Strong downslope winds
Wind chill	Extra chill caused by high wind speed of very cold winds
Snow line	Lowest edge of permanent snow cover on a mountain
Alpine Glacier	temperate glacier - located in mountainous areas with high altitudes
Polar Glaciers	located in polar regions where temperatures are permanently below 0 & ground is frozen underneath
Basal Flow	Flow at the base of a glacier
Rotational Flow	Movement of ice in a corrie
Compressing Flow	Ice moving downhill due to a reduction in gradient
Extended flow	Valley gradient gets steeper, which stretches out the ice
Bergshrund	the gap between a glacier and the backwall of a corrie
Surge	when a glacier moves rapidly very suddenly
Creep	when a glacier moves over imperfections in the bedrock

Resource summary

	Created by RachelBean about 10 years ago