About the cover
January 2008 Volume 1 No 1
Water is stored within glaciers in linked cavities and at the glacier bed, where it can affect glacier motion. But neither water pressure nor the volume of water stored provides a satisfactory explanation for short-term variations of glacier velocity. Studying Kennicott Glacier, Alaska, Timothy Bartholomaus and colleagues find that short pulses of water, for example due to an outburst flood from a lake upstream, affect glacier velocity the most. The cover image shows Gates Glacier, one of the main tributaries to the Kennicott Glacier.
Cover design by Karen Moore