THE Symposium on Remote Sensing in Glaciology was organized by the International Glaciological Society and held in Cambridge, England, from 16 to 20 September 1974. This was the third symposium organized by the Society. The first on Problems of Mass Balance Studies was published in the Journal, of Glaciology, Vol. 4, No. 33, 1962. The second, on the Hydrology of Glaciers was held in 1969. This was sponsored jointly with the International Commission on Snow and Ice and the International Association of Scientific Hydrology, and was published by that Association as its Publication No. 95 in 1973.
The present symposium was organized through two committees. The Local Organizing Committee consisted of W. F. Weeks (President of the International Glaciological Society), J. Heap, G de Q. Robin, C. W. M. Swithinbank, H. Richardson (Secretary of the International Glaciological Society). This Committee planned the detailed running of the Symposium. The scientific content was the responsibility of the Papers Committee, consisting of W. F. Weeks (President), W. J. Campbell, S. Evans, J. W. Glen (representing the Editors of the Journal of Glaciology), M. F. Meier, H. Richardson (Secretary). Papers were in three categories: invited papers, contributed papers, and recent work papers. Invited papers were requested by the papers committee and were chosen to provide a review of the present state of the art in various branches of remote sensing. Contributed papers were selected by the papers committee from among those for which extended abstracts had been submitted by a deadline date in Spring 1974. Recent work papers were selected from among those submitted up to the date of the Symposium itself in order to allow very recent and topical work to be reported. The first circular for the Symposium giving full details of the arrangements was published in the Society's news bulletin, Ice, No. 41, 1973.
Papers in all three categories which were presented at the Symposium were considered for publication in the proceedings provided the Tüll manuscript was received in time. The refereeing procedure was the same as for papers submitted in the usual way to the Journal of Glaciology, and this issue of the Journal contains these papers together with abstracts of the papers presented at the symposium but not published (for whatever reason). For some recent work papers the editors have not received abstracts; in these cases there is no further record of the paper other than its title in the programme of meetings. Abstracts are also included for those contributed papers accepted for the meeting which, because of the absence of their authors, were not presented or discussed.
An edited version of the discussions which took place is also included. These discussions have been prepared by the Rapporteurs, whose names can be found in the programme of meetings. For Sessions 1 8, these are based on written contributions to the discussion handed in by participants in the discussion at the end of the session. The final "brainstorming session" has been edited from a tape-recording of the proceedings. All participants have been sent the draft edited version and given an opportunity to correct or up-date it.
The papers in the issue are approximately in the order in which they were presented at the Symposium except where rearrangement had to take place because of non-scientific reasons, in which case papers have been repositioned in this issue to bring those on a given topic together. The invited papers are therefore dispersed through the volume and normally precede other papers on a similar topic. It is hoped that in this way they will provide background material which will enable the reader to be introduced to the various techniques of remote sensing used in glaciology, and therefore will enable him better to appreciate the papers on current work.
Remote sensing is a new and important tool for glaciologists. This volume is an attempt to provide a comprehensive guide to remote sensing for those using it to study ice.
