The research presented in this theme issue has been carried out in the context of on-going collaboration across European laboratories, and beyond. This theme issue highlights some of the research carried out during the time of the MicroDIce network. It has 10 contributions starting with a short overview of the microdynamics of ice by Sammonds et al.
Understanding the dynamic behaviour of ice in glaciers, polar ice caps, sea ice and the icy planets of the Solar System is a major challenge, especially in a time of changing climate, amplified at the poles and exciting new space exploration. Grain, sub-grain scale and asperity micro-structures, controlling both rheology and transport properties, are the crucial link between atomic-scale processes and the macroscopic behaviour of ice. New technologies, techniques and models are bringing fresh understanding of the evolution and dynamics of large ice bodies, from polar ice caps, mountain glaciers and the sea ice cover to planetary ice. But while ice research is published in glaciology and geophysical journals, no publication is devoted to microstructures and micro-deformation in ice. We hope with this theme issue to make recent advances in these researches broadly available both inside and outside the ice physics community.
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