What is glaciology? Its definition has been a matter of dispute for decades. Arguably, no one had known it better than Gerald Seligman, founder of the International Glaciological Society (IGS) and the Journal of Glaciology, which later gave rise to its younger sibling, the Annals of Glaciology. Seligman went to the trouble of spending years documenting and advocating a broad definition of the term, against the folk etymology that glaciology were merely the study of glaciers. In a letter to his IGS fellow Peter Wordie, dated 15 October 1944, Seligman already defended the definition of glaciology as ‘the study of ice in all its forms’ (Wood, Reference Wood1986). He would continue championing that definition for the rest of his career, as evidenced in an editorial published 17 years later in the Journal of Glaciology (Seligman, Reference Seligman1961), even though, according to the IGS historian Peter Wood (Reference Wood1986): ‘[…] a definition more to his own liking […] presumably would have been a far broader one’.

The first use of the word ‘glaciology’ in the English language dates back to the last decades of the 19th century: the Merriam-Webster (2021) Dictionary mentions the year 1889 without disclosing the source, while Seligman (Reference Seligman1961) cites a reference in the Oxford Dictionary to a book review published in The Nation (1892; notice the typo in Seligman's citation: the correct page in The Nation magazine is 497, not 492). Today, Seligman's (Reference Seligman1961) definition and etymology of ‘glaciology’ (namely: ‘The word is derived from the Latin glacies – ice, and has always been intended to cover every form of ice’) is widely accepted by glaciologists, although the epidemic pseudodoxy that glaciology should mean just the study of glaciers (and ice sheets) still lingers, sometimes even amid some scientists. Thus, it is still not uncommon to find glaciologists embroiled in disputes with experts in other fields about the glaciological relevance of topics like ice clouds, planetary ices or Antarctic meteorites. For those still in doubt, all those topics are indeed relevant for glaciologists and their studies have been published in the Journal of Glaciology and the Annals of Glaciology (e.g. Nishio and others, Reference Nishio, Azuma, Higashi and Annexstad1982; Gayet and Bain, Reference Gayet and Bain1983; Krass, Reference Krass1984; Delisle, Reference Delisle1993; Hvidberg, Reference Hvidberg2003; Velandia and others, Reference Velandia, Diener and Bansmer2021).

Since the time of Seligman's (Reference Seligman1961) definition, the field of glaciology has evolved and expanded, adapting itself to the times of the space-age, digital revolution, globalisation and climate change. Through each of these evolutionary steps, the realm of glaciology turned broader and more complex, becoming more intricately connected with the formal and applied sciences, social sciences and humanities. The current climate crisis (Chen and others, Reference Chen and Masson-Delmotte2021), imbued with images of ice inexorably melting and rising sea levels, has put the cryosphere in the spotlight as one of the most iconic indicators of climate change. Consequently, the environmental, social, economic and political repercussions of a changing cryosphere can no longer be detached from ice research (Hovelsrud and others, Reference Hovelsrud, Poppel, van Oort and Reist2011). Besides mastering the technical and scientific skills of the profession, responsible glaciologists must also be aware of the cultural, artistic, historical, philosophical, moral and legal aspects of the glaciological practices and of glaciology itself (Craciun and others, Reference Craciun2022).

For all those reasons, and on the occasion of the 85th anniversary of the IGS, the International Symposium on Ice in a Sustainable Society (ISS) was celebrated in Bilbao on 5–10 June 2022 (Tranter and Muñoz-Marzagon, Reference Tranter and Muñoz-Marzagon2022). It was quite unique, in the sense that it was the first time that an IGS symposium had integrated so many disciplines, bringing together experts from the physical, social, life and environmental sciences, humanities, formal sciences and engineering, as well as artists, intellectuals and representatives from the public and private sectors, to discuss and coproduce knowledge on glaciology, sustainability and climate change. The IGS Symposium adopted an innovative structure, combining keynote lectures, oral presentations and posters with many other types of intellectual interaction, including panel discussions, a pre-symposium workshop (Craciun and others, Reference Craciun2022), a week-long art exhibition and a thematic movie festival. Additionally, Catherine Ritz was presented with the Seligman Crystal, which she had been awarded in 2021 (IGS, 2022).

Certain artistic pieces exhibited during the Symposium are described in ICE by Payen and others (Reference Payen, Jackson, Phalkey and Jackson-Payen2022), while the whole ISS Art Exhibition is going to be presented in a separate book (to be announced on the ISS Symposium website: https://iss.bc3research.org). On the other hand, scientific articles presented in the Symposium are published in this volume of the Annals, together with additional contributions submitted after the open call for papers.

The Annals of Glaciology is a peer-reviewed, thematic journal published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the International Glaciological Society. Sérgio Henrique Faria, the Associate Chief Editor of this Annals issue, thanks the Scientific Editors, Marcela Brugnach, Christine Hvidberg and Shin Sugiyama, who applied their broad range of expertise to assessing the articles of this issue, and the IGS Chief Editor, Hester Jiskoot, for carefully handling some of the articles as Associate Chief Editor. We are also grateful to the reviewers of these articles, who positively contributed to evaluate and improve the submitted manuscripts with constructive criticism.

The ISS Symposium was co-organised by the IGS and the Basque Centre for Climate Change (BC3), with the support of the University of the Basque Country and the collaboration of many partner institutions. It was sponsored by the Spanish Government (María de Maeztu excellence accreditation 2018–22, Ref. MDM-2017-0714; MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033/) and by the Basque Government (Ref. RC_2022_1_0019). Special thanks are due to the ISS Cultural and Scientific Steering Committee (CSSC), the Local Organization Committee (LOC), to Patricia Muñoz-Marzagon for organising the programme and the technical aspects of the Symposium, as well as to Ainara Fernández and all the BC3 staff for the administrative and financial management.