the.com/snow line
The altitude where mountains give up pretending it's summer.
means The elevation above which snow persists year-round rather than melting away, marking the boundary between seasonal and permanent snow cover.
from A straightforward compound from 'snow' plus 'line,' coined by geographers and mountaineers who needed plain language for a visible, mappable boundary — the term shows up in scientific and exploration writing as alpine surveying matured, with no colorful backstory beyond simple descriptive necessity: the line where the snow is.
- definition
- Elevation above which snow never fully melts
- climbing use
- Marks where glaciers start accumulating, not shrinking
- moving target
- Rising worldwide as the planet warms
- equator vs poles
- Far higher near equator than near ice caps