Summary
The temeperate glaciers of the sub-Antarctic islands are located on a cold, wet, maritime environments making them valuable climatic indicators for the Southern Ocean. The changes in the glacier fronts on Heard, Kerguelen, Crozet, Marion, Bouvetoya, South Gerogia, and South Sandwich islands are compared to observe any larger regional trends in the mass balance of these southern hemisphere glaciers. From their discovery until the mid 1900s the majority of the glaciers on the sub-Antarctic islands were relatively stable, with only little or minor fluctuations. By the 1950s and 1960s a change in the glacier frontal positions was observed on Marion, Kerguelen, Heard, South Gerogia and Bouvetoya. This retreat has continued to presnt in varing degrees depending on the islands location north or south of the Polar Front