The breaking away of blocks of ice from the front of a glacier or ice shelf where it meets open water, producing icebergs. Calving is a major mechanism by which ice sheets and tidewater glaciers lose mass, and its rate can accelerate sharply as glaciers thin and their fronts become less stable.
Facts
Process Type Connections
Sources
1. Glacier Quick Facts - National Snow and Ice Data Center
Icebergs sectionQuote, Icebergs section
Icebergs form when chunks of ice calve, or break off, from glaciers, ice shelves, or a larger iceberg.
2. Iceberg calving - Wikipedia
Calving rate sectionQuote, Calving rate section
An ice shelf in equilibrium calves at roughly the same rate as the influx of new ice, and calving events may occur on sub-annual to decadal timescales to maintain an overall average mean position of the ice shelf front.
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