Experiments are performed with water and ice in order to characterize the ablation of a solid either by the impingement of an immersed jet or of a free surface jet. The initial nozzle-to-plate used is H/D j = 10 and the Reynolds number ranged between 10 4 and 1.5 • 10 5. The heat transfer between the jet and the solid are studied, depending on the Reynolds number Re and the temperature of the jet. For an immersed jet, it is found that the Nusselt number at the stagnation point scales as Re 0.8 and the ablation cavity shape is found to be auto-similar. For a free surface jet, the effect of the roughness of the impinged surface is also considered. If the characteristic size of the solid's roughness is large enough, the ablation velocity is greatly increased at the stagnation point. Two types of cavity shapes can be observed depending on the roughness characteristic size.