Technology in the advancement of glaciology

Many of the major advances in glaciology during the past 50 years have followed the development and application of new technology for viewing and measuring various characteristics of ice. Microscopes to study ice crystals, radars to probe the internal structure of large ice masses, mass spectrometers to analyze the atomic composition of ice cores, and satellite sensors to measure the global distribution of ice are some of the tools readily adapted by glaciologists. Today, new tools include microcomputers for automatic data logging, large-memory computers for data processing and numerical modeling, sensitive instruments for ice analysis, and satellite sensors for large-scale ice observations. In the future, continued advances in key technologies will help guide the evolution of science questions considered by glaciologists, expanding our view of ice, its fundamental properties, its interactions within the ice–ocean–land–atmosphere system, and its role in the evolution of our global environment.