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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.
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.
This is due to the gravitational attraction between the mass of the melted water and the other masses, such as remaining ice sheets, glaciers, water masses and mantle rocks [7] and the changes in centrifugal potential due to Earth's variable rotation. [16]
Glaciologists consider that trends in mass balance for glaciers are more fundamental than the advance or retreat of the termini of individual glaciers. In the years since 1960, there has been a striking decline in the overall volume of glaciers worldwide. This decline is correlated with global warming. [6]
The slowdown started because an ocean current that brings water to the glacier's ocean face grew much cooler in 2016. According to NASA, water temperatures in the vicinity of the glacier are now ...
Outlet glaciers drain inland glaciers through gaps found in the surrounding topography. [4] A higher amount of inland glacial melt ultimately increases the amount of outlet glacier output. [ 14 ] Studies predict that outlet glaciers found in Greenland can increase the global sea level considerably following an increase in global temperature ...
It is the largest of Earth's two current ice sheets, containing 26.5 million cubic kilometres (6,400,000 cubic miles) of ice, which is equivalent to 61% of all fresh water on Earth. Its surface is nearly continuous, and the only ice-free areas on the continent are the dry valleys, nunataks of the Antarctic mountain ranges , and sparse coastal ...
The south of the ice sheet is much more vulnerable than the other parts, and the quantities of ice involved mean that there is an impact on the deformation of Earth's crust and on Earth's rotation. While this effect is subtle, it already causes East Coast of the United States to experience faster sea level rise than the global average. [ 182 ]