Glacier in which most of the ice is below the pressure melting point; nonetheless, the glacier's surface may be susceptible to melt due to incoming solar radiation, and the ice at the rock/ice interfa
ce may be warmed as a result of the natural (geothermal) heat from the earth's surface.
A glacier consisting of cold ice, except possibly in a surface layer up to 1015 m thick that might warm to the melting point seasonally, and possibly right at the bed. See polythermal glacier, tempera
te glacier, dry-based glacier, warm-based glacier.
Glacier in which the ice found from the its surface to base has a temperature as cold as -30 Celsius throughout the year. This is well below the pressure melting point. Pressure melting can cause the
melting of ice at the base of these glaciers. One of the three types of glaciers: cold glacier; temperate glacier; and subpolar glacier.
The location that has the lowest annual mean temperature in its hemisphere. In the Northern Hemisphere the cold pole is usually placed at Verkhoiansk in Siberia (67 deg 33 min N, 133 deg 24 min E) wit
h an annual mean temperature of -16C (3F) [January: -50C (-59F), July: 16C (60F)], but the country around Verkhoiansk is very mountainous, and lower winter temperatures are found in some of the valleys. At Oimekon, for example, the average January temperature is probably below -51C (-60F). In the Southern Hemisphere the cold pole is near 80-85S and 75-90E. International Geophysical Year stations located inland on Antarctica have recorded several temperatures well below -73C (-100F).