How do the concepts of temperature, albedo, and surface elevation relate to ice sheets?
Temperature dealt with in the previous question. Albedo is high for an ice sheet, reflecting light back to space. Surface elevation matters as the ice sheet grows really large it produces its own climate because high altitudes are cold, and have less precipitation. In fact, very high regions of Antarctica have so little precipitation that the ice sublimes, or turns to water vapor, faster than snow falls, so paradoxically, the ice is getting thinner in the places where it is thickest. This is a very slow process, and is not significant in the overall mass balance.
