This session will highlight recent advances in remote sensing of components in the polar cryosphere such as ice sheets, glaciers, sea ice, and frozen soil, including results from field validation, and the development of techniques for the retrieval of geophysical parameters, data assimilation and data fusion. We encourage contributions from present satellite and airborne missions such as CryoSat-2 and Operation IceBridge which lead the way to the next generation of sensors exploring the changing cryosphere. Observations which provide new insights into cryospheric processes, ground verification, and cross-calibration of multiple satellite data as well as contributions exploiting these data sets for climate related studies are welcome.