Some of the terminology used within the ice2sea programme has a specific and precise scientific meaning that may not be apparent to the general reader, or may, in common usage, be used slightly differently. Below are specific definitions.
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| Term | Definition |
| Glacier | Any body of ice that flows from an area of accumulation to an area of ablation (loss). |
| Ice sheet | A glacier of considerable thickness and more than 50,000 km 2, forming a continuous cover over a land surface, spreading outward in all directions. (Two ice sheets still exist on Earth, one covering Greenland and the other in Antarctica). |
| Ablation | Processes by which snow and ice are lost from a glacier, floating ice, or snow cover. These processes include melting, evaporation, (sublimation), wind erosion, and calving. |
| Calving | Breaking off and floating away of icebergs from either a tidewater glacier or an ice shelf. |
| Ice Shelf | A continuous plate of floating ice which extends seaward from a grounded glacier or ice sheet. Mostly in Antarctica, but with smaller examples in the high Arctic. |
| Continental ice | A collective term for all ice, glaciers, ice caps and ice sheets that rest on land. For the purposes of the ice2sea programme, not including permafrost, seasonal snow cover, or lake/river ice. |
| Ice cap | A dome of glacial ice with a generally radial flow pattern usually covering an island . |
| Mountain glacier | A channel of flowing ice flowing in a mountain environment. |
| Tidewater glacier | A channel of flowing ice that terminates in the sea. |
| Ice-response model | Generic term used by ice2sea for the family the dynamic/statistical models of ice-sheet, ice-cap, glacier that we will use to predict the future behaviour of continental ice masses. |
| Full Stokes ice model | A fully 3-D model of ice that requires considerable computer time to run, but which provides the most reliable prediction of ice-response. |
| Shallow ice approximation model | A simple ice-sheet model that can be embedded in a model of global climate. |
| Marine ice sheet | An ice sheet that rests on rock that is below sea level and would remain below sea level once the ice was removed. |
| Grounding line | The point at which an ice sheet or glacier first begins to float, and first comes into contact with the sea. |
| Hypsometry | A topographic description of a glacier that expresses its likely sensitivity to changes in climate and snow-fall. |
| Surface mass balance | Collectively, the processes that lead to the accumulation (or ablation) of snow on the surface of a glacier or ice sheet (precipitation, wind-transport, melting/refreezing). |
Ice2sea is a science programme that is funded by the European Union Framework-7 scheme. Ice2sea will improve projections of the contribution of ice to future sea-level rise.
