Deicing is the process by which ice and snow are removed from an aircraft’s surface so that the frozen contaminants don’t mess with the plane’s aerodynamics.

One of the things I’ve found challenging in learning about the cryosphere is the large number of terms related to ice, such as ice sheets, ice caps, ice shelves, and icebergs, all of which begin as snow. There’s also sea ice and its various forms.

Lake effect snow is a prominent feature of winter weather around the Great Lakes, but it also affects other regions, such as the Wasatch Mountains near Utah’s Great Salt Lake.

Albedo is a measure of the fraction of solar energy that is reflected from a surface.