All processes by which snow and ice are lost from a glacier, floating ice, or snow cover; or the amount which is melted. These processes include melting, evaporation, (sublimation), wind erosion, and [..]

All processes that add snow or ice to a glacier or to floating ice or snow cover: snow fall, avalanching, wind transport, refreezing...

Any glacier in a mountain range which is dominantly confined by the surrounding topography. It usually originates in a cirque and may flow down into a valley previously carved by a stream. Synonym: mo [..]

Breaking off and floating away as icebergs of either a tidewater glacier or an ice shelf.  Calving is a very efficient form of ablation, thus helps stabilize the extent of ice sheets (like Antarctica) [..]

A small, curved scar made by vibratory chipping of a bedrock surface by rock fragments carried in the base of a glacier. Each mark is roughly transverse to the direction of flow, and either convex (&q [..]

  The distance between a site and open ocean water.  Continental interiors (obviously!) and areas surrounded by nearly permanent, continuous sea ice are highly continental.

  An archaic term for heterogeneous sediment (presumed to be deposited by drifting icebergs, perhaps in Noah's flood!).  Includes and retained in stratified drift, but not in till.

  Ability to do work.  Most evident in glacial systems as radiant energy from the sun and as latent energy required to melt ice to water.

Reinforcement which either accelerates (positive feedback) or retards (negative feedback) a process.  An example of positive feedback would be the accumulation of glacial snow and ice increasing the a [..]

The general term for all glacial deposits, both unsorted and sorted (see Stratified Drift).