thawing vs heating

thawing and heating both are nouns.

Word	Noun	Adjective	Verb	Adverb
thawing	Yes	No	No	No
heating	Yes	No	No	No

As nouns, heating is a hypernym of thawing; that is, heating is a word with a broader meaning than thawing:

thawing: the process whereby heat changes something from a solid to a liquid
heating: the process of becoming warmer; a rising temperature

Other hypernyms of thawing include warming, phase change, phase transition, physical change, state change.

thawing (noun)	heating (noun)
warm weather following a freeze; snow and ice melt	utility to warm a building
the process whereby heat changes something from a solid to a liquid	the process of becoming warmer; a rising temperature