REYKJAVÍK, ICELAND AUGUST 11-13, 2008 - Veðurstofa Íslands

society issues the journal Jökull, still a leading international scientific journal
in glaciology, and operates since 1951 a research station on Europe’s second
largest glacier, Vatnajökull. In Sweden, the mass balance studies of
Storglaciären glacier started in 1946, constituting the longest continuous
annual mass balance records in the world. The studies of Storglaciären have
been facilitated by the proximity to the research station at Tarfala, established
by Valter Schytt, and operated by Stockholm University. The mass balance
records at the Norwegian glacier Storbreen comes second in the world, being
started in 1949 by Olav Liestøl (Liestøl 2000). This glacier’s front position
has been continuously recorded since 1902.
Nordic glaciologists did not interpret the word “Nordic” narrowly, and
organised 1949-1951 a Norwegian-Swedish-British Antarctic expedition to
Queen Maud Land, inspired by Ahlmann. Those and later studies of the
Antarctic, confirm that there has been no appreciable thinning of this part of
the Antarctic ice, having strongly negative ice temperatures, in contrast to the
recent retreat of most other glaciers of the world.
Nordic glaciologists have contributed much to promote glaciological field
work and glacier surveys. The “Nordic” school of glaciology has based
investigations on extensive field measurements of winter accumulation and
summer ablation on a large number of glaciers. An early glacier inventory,
which became a model for later publications, concerned glaciers in Northern
Scandinavia (Østrem et al. 1973). Later examples are descriptions of
European glaciers (e.g. Schytt 1993) and handbooks for field work (Østrem
and Brugman 1991). Gunnar Østrem divided his professional career between
Norway, Sweden and Canada. His main scientific finding is the realization
that ice-cored moraines mainly consist of superimposed ice and not glacier
ice.
The history of glaciological science is full of scientists coming from other
fields of interest and making major contributions. One such is the Danish
paleoclimatologist Willi Dansgaard, who in the late 1960s first demonstrated,
using mass spectrometry, that the relative concentrations of hydrogen
isotopes (H 1 , deuterium and tritium) and oxygen isotopes, notably O 16 and
O 18 , in ice cores and in trapped air bubbles can indicate climate changes, i.a.
in the Camp Century, Greenland, ice core. The relative abundance of water
molecules with different combinations of these isotopes is telling evidence of
the temperature and humidity of the original air masses. Dansgaard’s
scientific achievements and efforts in the field work are told most
entertainingly in his autobiography (Dansgaard 2005)
Ice on lakes and rivers. The discipline of ice on lakes and rivers has
attracted many Nordic scientists. One pioneer in Nordic ice science was Olaf
Devik, (1932), who was professionally active in this field until the 1980s
when he was close to 100 years old. Erkki Palosuo, professor of geophysics
in Helsinki and associated with the Finnish Institute of Marine Research, was
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