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Ablation zone or ablation area refers to the low-altitude area of a glacier or ice sheet below firn with a net loss in ice mass. This loss can result from melting , sublimation , evaporation , ice calving , aeolian processes like blowing snow , avalanche , and any other ablation .
Ablation can refer to mass loss from the upper surface of a glacier or ocean-driven melt and calving on the face of a glacier terminus. [7] Ablation can refer either to the processes removing ice and snow or to the quantity of ice and snow removed. Debris-covered glaciers have also been shown to greatly impact the ablation process.
Glaciers form where the accumulation of snow and ice exceeds ablation. A glacier usually originates from a cirque landform (alternatively known as a corrie or as a cwm) – a typically armchair-shaped geological feature (such as a depression between mountains enclosed by arêtes) – which collects and compresses through gravity the snow that ...
Ablation is the reverse of accumulation: it includes all the processes by which a glacier can lose mass. The main ablation process for most glaciers that are entirely land-based is melting; the heat that causes melting can come from sunlight, or ambient air, or from rain falling on the glacier, or from geothermal heat below the glacier bed.
Ice calving, also known as glacier calving or iceberg calving, is the breaking of ice chunks from the edge of a glacier. [1] It is a form of ice ablation or ice disruption. It is the sudden release and breaking away of a mass of ice from a glacier, iceberg, ice front, ice shelf, or crevasse. The ice that breaks away can be classified as an ...
Glacier ice accumulation occurs through accumulation of snow and other frozen precipitation, as well as through other means including rime ice (freezing of water vapor on the glacier surface), avalanching from hanging glaciers on cliffs and mountainsides above, and re-freezing of glacier meltwater as superimposed ice.
A glacier (US: / ˈ ɡ l eɪ ʃ ər / GLAY-shər) or (UK: / ˈ ɡ l æ s i ə /) is a persistent body of dense ice that is constantly moving under its own weight; it forms where the accumulation of snow exceeds its ablation (melting and sublimation) over many years, often centuries.
The glacier equilibrium line is the line separating the glacial accumulation area above from the ablation area below. The equilibrium line altitude (ELA) and its change over the years is a key indicator of the health of a glacier.