On The Temperature Profile and the Age Profile in the Central Part of Cold Ice Sheets

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Abstract
The generalized Glen’s lawέ = έ0Tnexp (kθ) is used to calculate die horizontal and vertical velocity profiles and from these the temperature and age profiles of cold ice sheets. It is shown that, by substituting forθa function increasing linearly with height, velocity profiles for all ice sheets are obtained which represent excellent approximations to the true ones, since, above a critical height hewhere the deviation from linearity becomes large, the influence of temperature on ice flow becomes negligible. In a comparison of the present theory with Robin’s (1955) treatment a larger temperature difference ΔTof up to 30% is obtained. Furthermore the present theory yields an age considerably increased compared with Nye’s model; e.g. more than 50% at a relative height ofh\H= 0·1.