A Flow Law for Temperate Glacier Ice

Abstract

Uniaxial compressive creep tests were performed on polycrystalline samples of glacier ice at stresses ranging from 0.06 bar to 1.0 bar under conditions similar to those actually occurring in a temperate glacier. Tests were conducted in an ice tunnel on the Blue Glacier, Mt Olympus, Washington, U.S.A., thus ensuring that the temperature remained at the pressure melting point. The flow law proposed as an appropriate one-dimensional flow law for temperate glacier ice is a polynomial expression containing linear, cubic and fifth-order terms. This law provides a good fit to the data and is also consistent with the quasi-viscous creep data of Glen (1955).