Orals

Mountain glaciers and ice caps are major contributors to sea-level rise and have large impacts on water balance of local basins. This is a general session on glaciers and ice caps where the relationship to climate forms a particular focus. The IPCC AR5 of Working Group 1 covers Earths Glaciers and Ice Caps outside the ice sheets under the heading of Glaciers and shows that, despite much progress recently provided by the community, we are still left with substantial unknowns. We need to acquire more data, both from new fieldwork and release of unpublished data from prior years on mass changes of glaciers and ice caps from all regions of the world. We need to improve the understanding of the processes behind the changes, and we need to improve the application of models of different complexity. We welcome presentations on all aspects of mass changes; current, past and future changes based on field observations, remote sensing and modeling. Studies of physical processes controlling accumulation and ablation including calving and submarine melting, are especially welcome.