Keywords

Ablation - the melting of ice.
Active layer - An area of unfrozen ground which surrounds a glacier but is still part of an ecosystem.
Accumulation - gain in ice mass.
Equilibrium zone - The area where accumulation meets ablation rates
Glacier - a large, slow moving river of ice, formed from compacted layers of snow, that slowly deforms and flows in response to gravity and its own weight.
Glacial environment - an area which is influenced by glacial activity and in which distinctive landscapes and landforms are created due to processes of erosion and deposition.
Moraine - mounds of debris and material deposited by glaciers.
Periglacial environments - areas which are on the edge of glacial environments. They are characterised by permafrost and therefore have their own distinctive features.
Permafrost - a condition where a layer of sediment below the ground remains frozen for longer than a year. It occurs wherever the annual ground temperature is less than 0 degrees Celcius. Permafrost is fround in about 25% of the world's non-glacialated land surfaces.
Snout - the end of a glacier.
Talik - a localised, unfrozen layer of sediment which is sometimes found under lakes.
System - a system is a set of interacting components which form an integrated whole.
Glacial system - glacial systems have inputs, outputs and processes. The can be summarised as the glacial budget.
Calving - the formation of icebergs.
Zone of accumulation - the upper part of a glacier where inputs exceed outputs.
Zone of ablation - the lower part of a glacier where the outputs exceed the inputs
Closed talik - unfrozen ground that is found within a mass of permafrost.
Open talik - an area of unfrozen ground that is open to the ground surface but otherwise enclosed in permafrost.
Sporatic permafrost - occurs where small islands of permafrost are scattered in generally unfrozen areas.
Through talik - unfrozen ground that is exposed to the ground surface and to a larger mass of unfrozen ground beneath it.
Continuous permafrost - exists over the landscape as an uninterupted layer.
Discontinuous permafrost - zones of permafrost with numerous scattered small thawed areas.
Alpine permafrost - found at high elevations in areas outside of where continuous and discontinuous permafrost are common.
Subsea permafrost - is frozen ground that exists in the sediments beneath sea water.
Sub-glacial - The area below the glacier.
Supra-glacial - The area on top of the glacier.

Cold environments are...

What's a cold environment?

If i got asked this question i'd probably just say somewhere i don't really want to go.
however i now know that a cold environment is is somewhere that is constantly below 10 degrees celsius.

In some extreme cases of cold environments, nothing at all lives and in others you can find penguins and the awesome polar bear. Thanks to global warming though some of the cold environments of the globe at are risk.