Introduction to the Physics of the Cryosphere

Introduction to the Physics of the Cryosphere is intended for graduates with a numerical sciences background, particularly those who are heading towards postgraduate study or are generally interested in environmental physics. Conservation equations underpin the physics encompassed in this book, although the interesting part comes in how the necessary variables and boundary conditions are defined to be able to simulate changes in the cryosphere. Phase changes between ice, liquid water and water vapour also come into play.

Melody Sandells studied Physics (MSci) at Imperial College, London before undertaking her PhD at the University of Reading on Modelling the Impact of Vegetation on the Seasonal Snowcover, which involved a four month field experiment in the Owyhee Mountains of Idaho. She moved on to study the densification of snow at the Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling in University College London. Later, she returned to the University of Reading as a member of the European Space Agency Expert Scientific Laboratory for the SMOS mission. Since then, Mel has dedicated her research to understanding how to improve global observations of snow mass, visiting the Canadian sub-Arctic, and Nordic Arctic along the way.

Daniela Flocco studied Environmental Sciences, majoring in oceanography at the "Universita' Parthenope" in Naples, Italy. She earned her PhD with a thesis on the geophysics of Antarctic coastal polynyas and their impact on dense water production based on her studies at the Scott Polar Research Institute and the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics at the University of Cambridge. Since then she has been working at University College London on the thermodynamics of sea ice focusing on the role of melt ponds on the enhanced thinning rate of Arctic sea ice. She has worked on the inclusion of the physics of melt ponds in one of the sea ice models used within the IPCC. She is now working as a research assistant in the Meteorology Department at the University of Reading.