The cryosphere, a critical component of the Earth system, is experiencing significant changes due to climate forcing. While global warming is the overarching driver, the rates, impacts, and processes vary in mountain and Polar regions. Understanding climate-cryosphere interactions across different spatial and temporal scales is essential for estimating the global cryosphere's response to climate change and the consequent impact on other climate system components.
Mountain Regions: In mountainous areas, the cryosphere encompasses seasonal snow cover, glaciers, permafrost, and ice deposits in caves. These elements influence the hydrology of numerous river systems, crucial for water availability, especially in arid high mountain regions. Despite their smaller water volume compared to polar regions, glacier mass loss significantly contributes to rising sea levels. Permafrost degradation poses risks to rock stability and increases the potential for natural hazards. Even the lesser-known permanent ice deposits in caves store vital paleoenvironmental information. Investigating micro-climates over snow and ice surfaces and their links to large-scale weather conditions is crucial for understanding the mass and energy balance of the mountain cryosphere.
Polar Regions: Polar regions exhibit high sensitivity to climate change, exemplified by Arctic amplification. Changes in sea ice and ice sheets in both poles impact global climate through alterations in atmospheric and ocean circulation, sea level, albedo, vegetation, and related feedbacks. The Arctic has witnessed a sharp decline in sea ice extent and volume, with the Greenland Ice Sheet losing mass rapidly. Antarctica, too, shows declining sea ice extent, with unclear signs of recovery. Contrasting trends in the mass balance of the Antarctic ice sheet in its eastern and western parts add complexity. The impacts of these changes in the polar cryosphere on large-scale climate variability through atmospheric and oceanic pathways are uncertain.
Session: This session invites contributions addressing all aspects of cold regions' meteorology and the cryosphere interacting with the past, present, and future climate system from both modeling and observations. We encourage submissions from multiple approaches, i.e. past records, meteorological and geophysical observations, numerical modeling, and downscaling methods aiming to advance the current knowledge of the feedback between the cryosphere and the climate system. Presentations of interdisciplinary studies, as well as detailed process surveys, are highly welcome.
Mountain Regions: In mountainous areas, the cryosphere encompasses seasonal snow cover, glaciers, permafrost, and ice deposits in caves. These elements influence the hydrology of numerous river systems, crucial for water availability, especially in arid high mountain regions. Despite their smaller water volume compared to polar regions, glacier mass loss significantly contributes to rising sea levels. Permafrost degradation poses risks to rock stability and increases the potential for natural hazards. Even the lesser-known permanent ice deposits in caves store vital paleoenvironmental information. Investigating micro-climates over snow and ice surfaces and their links to large-scale weather conditions is crucial for understanding the mass and energy balance of the mountain cryosphere.
Polar Regions: Polar regions exhibit high sensitivity to climate change, exemplified by Arctic amplification. Changes in sea ice and ice sheets in both poles impact global climate through alterations in atmospheric and ocean circulation, sea level, albedo, vegetation, and related feedbacks. The Arctic has witnessed a sharp decline in sea ice extent and volume, with the Greenland Ice Sheet losing mass rapidly. Antarctica, too, shows declining sea ice extent, with unclear signs of recovery. Contrasting trends in the mass balance of the Antarctic ice sheet in its eastern and western parts add complexity. The impacts of these changes in the polar cryosphere on large-scale climate variability through atmospheric and oceanic pathways are uncertain.
Session: This session invites contributions addressing all aspects of cold regions' meteorology and the cryosphere interacting with the past, present, and future climate system from both modeling and observations. We encourage submissions from multiple approaches, i.e. past records, meteorological and geophysical observations, numerical modeling, and downscaling methods aiming to advance the current knowledge of the feedback between the cryosphere and the climate system. Presentations of interdisciplinary studies, as well as detailed process surveys, are highly welcome.