 ablation is removal of material from the surface of an object by vaporization, chipping, or other erosive processes. examples of ablative materials are described below, and include spacecraft material for ascent and atmospheric reentry, ice and snow in glaciology, biological tissues in medicine and passive fire protection materials.  ==biology== biological ablation is the removal of a biological structure or functionality. genetic ablation is another term for gene silencing, in which gene expression is abolished through the alteration or deletion of genetic sequence information. in cell ablation, individual cells in a population or culture are destroyed or removed. both can be used as experimental tools, as in loss-of-function experiments.cell ablation definition at change bioscience. ==glaciology== in glaciology and meteorology, ablationâthe opposite of accumulationârefers to all processes that remove snow, ice, or water from a glacier or snowfield.paterson, w. s. b. 1999. the physics of glaciers. tarrytown, n.y., pergamon. 496 p. ablation refers to the melting of snow or ice that runs off the glacier, evaporation, sublimation, calving, or erosive removal of snow by wind. air temperature is typically the dominant control of ablation, with precipitation exercising secondary control. in a temperate climate during ablation season, ablation rates typically average around 2&nbsp;mm/h.glossary of meteorology where solar radiation is the dominant cause of snow ablation (e.g., if air temperatures are low under clear skies), characteristic ablation textures such as suncups and penitentes may develop on the snow surface.betterton, m. d. "theory of structure formation in snowfields motivated by penitentes, suncups, and dirt cones." physical review e 63.5 (2001): 056129. ablation can refer either to the processes removing ice and snow or to the quantity of ice and snow removed.  ==laser ablation==  laser ablation is greatly affected by the nature of the material and its ability to absorb energy, therefore the wavelength of the ablation laser should have a minimum absorption depth. w
Materials_degradation Plasma_physics