The Working Group on Glaciology of the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR), meeting in Mendoza, Argentina, during the XIV Assembly of SCAR, October 1976, recognized the need for a symposium on Antarctic glaciology. Previously, only two international meetings had been held on Antarctic glaciological research, specifically. These were the Symposium on Antarctic Glaciology, held in Helsinki, Finland, 25 July-6 August 1960, the proceedings of which were subsequently published in Publication 55 of the International Association of Scientific Hydrology, 1961, and the International Symposium on Antarctic Glaciological Exploration, held in Hanover, New Hampshire, USA, 3–7 September 1968 and published in Publication 86 of the International Association of Scientific Hydrology, 1970.
At the Mendoza meeting, it was suggested that the Institute of Polar Studies of The Ohio State University might offer to host, in 1981, a symposium on Antarctic glaciology. The suggestion was adopted by the university and the offer accepted by the SCAR Executive Committee, and by the US National Academy of Sciences, acting through its Polar Research Board, which serves as the US National Committee on Antarctic Research. This symposium, the third International Symposium on Antarctic Glaciology (TISAG), also received the endorsement of the International Commission on Snow and Ice. The Council of the International Glaciological Society agreed to publish the proceedings of TISAG, in a volume of the Annals of Glaciology, against an underwriting of publication costs. The SCAR Executive Committee provided the initial funding for this purpose. The Division of Polar Programs of the US National Science Foundation, through a grant to The Ohio State University, has provided the rest of the financial support for this publication and also for some of the other costs of the symposium.
At the meeting of the SCAR Working Group on Glaciology in Ottawa, August 1978, steering, papers, and local committees for TISAG were established under the chairmanship of Dr C Bull, Dr C W M Swithinbank, and Dr C Bull, respectively. Subsequently, in May 1981, Dr Bull passed the Local Committee Chairmanship to Or David H Elliot, Director of the Institute of Polar Studies, for the implementation of the symposium plans. Dr Bull retained direct responsibility for the technical program and was Presiding Officer for the symposium. The office staff of the College of Mathematical and Physical Sciences and of the Institute of Polar Studies, in particular the Director and the Assistant Director, Mr P J Anderson, and special assistant Mrs Lynn Choate, and other members of the Local Organizing Committee worked hard to ensure that the arrangements operated smoothly and to the satisfaction of the symposium participants.
Based on the glaciological symposia held in Ottawa in 1978 and in Geilo, Norway in 1980, it was anticipated that about 60 papers would be submitted for presentation. In the event, 126 summaries were submitted within a few days of the first deadline, 15 December 1980.
Complete manuscripts of most of the papers that had been accepted for presentation were received before or close to the next deadline of 1 July 1981. Members of the Papers Committee acted as associate scientific editors for the Annals of Glaciology volume, and arranged for the refereeing of these manuscripts. For most papers, discussions among author, scientific editor, referees, and house editor had been completed, and texts approved, before the end of the symposium.
Of the 126 summaries submitted, two were rejected by the Papers Committee, 32 were combined into 15 presentations, and 13 were withdrawn after being accepted, or could not be presented because no author registered as participant.
The stated policy had been that a paper could be presented at the symposium only by its author or co-author, and that papers accepted but not presented would be published only in abstract. Thus, during the symposium, 94 papers were presented in sessions devoted to ice-sheet stability, with C W M Swithinbank and G de Q Robin as chairmen; model studies, US B Paterson and J Weertman, chairmen; sea ice, G Weller, chairman; ice shelves, A J Gow and W F Budd, chairmen; glacial geology and history, O Orheim, chairman; International Antarctic Glaciological Project, U Radok, V Kotlyakov, C Lorius and C R Bentley, chairmen; stratigraphic studies, A Higashi and L W Gold, chairmen; atmospheric and surface processes, J W Glen, chairman. Of these 94 papers, 73 were presented in the regular sessions, and 21 in three 90-minute poster sessions. It was possible to rearrange the scheduled program permitting a 90-minute general discussion to be held. M F Budd, acting as chairman, introduced a number of important questions which had been raised in previous sessions, for consideration by the participants. Discussants were invited to submit their contributions in writing for inclusion in the symposium volume. The full text of 60 edited papers are presented in this volume, together with the abstracts of a further 34 papers for which either the manuscripts were not submitted for publication in the Annals of Glaciology or the authors did not participate in the symposium.
In addition to the generous support provided by the US National Science Foundation, The Ohio State University, and the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research, the local organizers would like to acknowledge the considerable help that they have received from several industrial and business enterprises.
