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Ablation zone Area of a glacier in which the annual loss of ice through ablation exceeds the annual gain from precipitation. Arête An acute ridge of rock where two cirques meet. Bergschrund Crevasse formed near the head of a glacier, where the mass of ice has rotated, sheared and torn itself apart in the manner of a geological fault.
[1] [2] These zones include the dry snow zone, in which the ice entirely retains subfreezing temperatures and no melting occurs. Dry snow zones only occur within the interior regions of the Greenland and Antarctica ice sheets. [3] [4] Below the dry snow zone is the percolation zone, where some meltwater penetrates down into the glacier where it ...
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 ...
1. A deep crack, fissure, or chasm in the ice of a glacier or ice sheet, or more generally in any ground surface. 2. A break in the natural levee or bank of a river. [4] crust The thin shell of solid material that is the Earth's outermost layer and the outermost component of the lithosphere.
Overview of the cryosphere and its larger components [1]. The cryosphere is an umbrella term for those portions of Earth's surface where water is in solid form. This includes sea ice, ice on lakes or rivers, snow, glaciers, ice caps, ice sheets, and frozen ground (which includes permafrost).
[10] [11] Many glaciers from temperate, alpine and seasonal polar climates store water as ice during the colder seasons and release it later in the form of meltwater as warmer summer temperatures cause the glacier to melt, creating a water source that is especially important for plants, animals and human uses when other sources may be scant ...
Glacier melt records were shattered in the European Alps, with average loss of three to four metres of ice thickness throughout the mountain range – substantially more than the previous record ...
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 ...