Synonyms
Hoar; Ice deposition (opposite of sublimation); Icing (as in: aircraft icing – the term “icing” is also sometimes used to refer to ice formation on a surface from supercooled liquid)
Definition
Frost is the ice deposited from water vapor.
Introduction
Frost formation is caused by the decrease in saturation vapor pressure with reduced temperature, which leads to the removal of water from chilled air by the heterogeneous nucleation of ice on available surfaces. Frost typically occurs at and near the ground surface following radiative heat losses on winter nights in temperate and colder climates. “Frost” also forms the beginning of a number of open compound words (e.g., frost action, frost creep, frost heave, etc.) that refer to phenomena that involve ice that is present near the ground surface, but that are otherwise not at all related to ice deposition from the air. Several of these phenomena are discussed in the following sections.
Frost action
Frost action refers to the...
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Rempel, A.W. (2011). Frost. In: Singh, V.P., Singh, P., Haritashya, U.K. (eds) Encyclopedia of Snow, Ice and Glaciers. Encyclopedia of Earth Sciences Series. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-2642-2_170
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