| 释义 |
‖ firn|fɪrn|
[Ger. firn, firne, lit. ‘last year's’ (snow), subst. use of firne adj. ‘of last year’: see fern a.]
A name given to snow above the glaciers which is partly consolidated by alternate thawing and freezing, but has not yet become glacier-ice. Also attrib. and Comb.
1853Kane Grinnell Exp. viii. (1856) 61 The ‘firn’, or consolidated snow of the Alpine glaciers. 1855J. D. Forbes Tour Mt. Blanc 33 Magnificent is the prospect which these firns sometimes present. 1878Huxley Physiogr. 155 The imperfectly consolidated substance, partly snow and partly ice, is known in Switzerland as Névé or Firn. 1934Geogr. Jrnl. LXXXIV. 283 The firn-field, as we know it in the Alps. 1937Discovery Feb. 35/2 The ‘firn stoss’ or ‘ice-quake’. 1958Jrnl. Glaciology III. 265 The firn line..is rather lower than the equilibrium line of the smallest glaciers.
Hence firnifiˈcation, the conversion of snow into firn.
1923Ahlmann & Tveten in Geogr. Annaler V. 55 We imagine the process in the firnification of the snow, and its further glaciation to consist mainly in a sublimation, caused by the various vapour pressures on different forms and different sizes of crystals. 1937Nature 30 Jan. 187/1 Firnification, or the changes of the snowflake after lying on the ground. |