This book exposes practitioners and students to the theory and application of river and lake ice processes to gain a better understanding of these processes for modelling and forecasting. It focuses on the following processes of the surface water ice: freeze-up, ice cover thickening, ice cover breakup and ice jamming. The reader will receive a fundamental understanding of the physical processes of each component and how they are applied in monitoring and modelling ice covers during the winter season and forecasting ice floods. Exercises accompany each component to reinforce the theoretical principles learned. These exercises will also expose the reader to different tools to process data, such a space-borne remote sensing imagery for ice cover classification. A thread supporting numerical modelling of river ice and lake ice processes runs through the book.

Published by the American Geophysical Union as part of the Geophysical Monograph Series, Volume 163. The North, with its vast and varied landscapes, sparse population, and cold climate has always challenged its explorers: physically, mentally, logistically, and technically. The scientific community in particular has known such challenges in the past and does so today, especially in light of the projected intensification of climate change at high latitudes. Indeed, there are clear signs that change is already ongoing in many environmental variables: Air temperature and annual precipitation (including snowfall) are increasing in many regions; spring snow cover extent is decreasing; lake and river ice freeze-up dates are occurring later and breakup dates earlier; glaciers are retreating rapidly; permafrost temperatures are increasing and, in many cases, the permafrost is thawing; and sea-ice extent is at record minimums and thinning.