John Nye

Who is John Nye?

John Frederick Nye is the first physicist to apply plasticity to understand glacier flow. Nye's early work was on the physics of plasticity, spanning ice rheology, ice flow mechanics, laboratory ice flow measurements, glacier surges, meltwater penetration in ice, and response of glaciers and ice sheets to seasonal and climatic changes.

He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1976. He has served as president of the International Glaciological Society, who awarded him the Seligman Crystal in 1969 for outstanding contributions to glaciology, and was also president of the International Commission of Snow and Ice of the International Association of Hydrological Sciences. The Cryosphere Focus Group of the American Geophysical Union hosts a Nye Lecture each year at its fall meeting.

Nye is currently Emeritus Professor in Physics at the University of Bristol, UK. In addition to glaciology, his research interests include caustics and microwave probes.