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Greenland ice sheet as seen from space. An ice sheet is a body of ice which covers a land area of continental size - meaning that it exceeds 50,000 km 2. [4] The currently existing two ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica have a much greater area than this minimum definition, measuring at 1.7 million km 2 and 14 million km 2, respectively.
The rapid retreat of the Cordilleran ice sheet is a focus of study by glaciologists seeking to understand the difference in patterns of melting in marine-terminating glaciers, glaciers whose margin extends into open water without seafloor contact, and land-terminating glaciers, with a land or seafloor margin, as scientists believe the western ...
Another record was set in July 2012, when the melt zone extended to 97% of the ice sheet's cover, [123] and the ice sheet lost approximately 0.1% of its total mass (2900 Gt) during that year's melting season, with the net loss (464 Gt) setting another record. [124]
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.
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. The equilibrium line altitude (ELA) or snow line separates the ablation ...
In the 2012 documentary entitled Chasing Ice by cinematographer Jeff Orlowski, nature photographer James Balog and his Extreme Ice Survey (EIS) team, [32] there is a 75-minute segment showing the Jakobshavn Glacier calving. Two EIS videographers waited several weeks in a small tent overlooking the glacier, and were finally able to witness 7.4 ...
In Switzerland, 6% of the glace ice volume was lost between 2021 and 2022 and for the first time in history no snow lasted the summer, so there was no accumulation of fresh ice. Between 2001 and ...
On a glacier, the accumulation zone is the area above the firn line, where snowfall accumulates and exceeds the losses from ablation, (melting, evaporation, and sublimation). The annual equilibrium line separates the accumulation and ablation zone annually. The accumulation zone is also defined as the part of a glacier's surface, usually at ...