What is the Cryosphere?
The cryosphere is the scientific name for all the frozen water on the Earth’s surface: ice caps, glaciers, sea ice, land ice, frozen lakes, snow, permafrost, etc. The cryosphere makes up an important part of the planet as a whole, providing a cooling effect by reflecting sunlight back into space and causing positive feedback cycles of cooling. The cryosphere is much larger today than it was throughout most of the history of life, when forests extended from pole to pole and glaciation was limited to mountains at extreme latitudes. As you might guess, the cryosphere is huge. Since Antarctica separated from the continent of Australia 20 million years ago, a freezing circumpolar ocean current has cooled the continent and caused it to become covered in ice year-round. The greatest volume of ice in the cryosphere is concentrated in the East Antarctic Ice Sheet, which can be up to about two miles in depth. 90% of the volume of global ice sheets is found in Antarctica, with another 9.5% in Gre
The Cryosphere includes all forms of frozen water on the Earth’s land or sea surfaces, as well as perennially frozen ground. You can find frozen water in different forms on the Earth surface such as: Seasonal snow, glaciers, ice sheets and permafrost or perennially frozen ground. Seasonal snow is very important to study, due to the fact that it covers approximately about 33 percent of the total Earth surface mostly in the Northern Hemisphere. Seasonal snowfall accounts for a good percentage of the annual precipitation in the northern countries. In the other hand, Glaciers and ice sheets cover about 10 percent of the Earth’s land area and accounts for storing about 75 percent of the world’s freshwater. These large masses of ice accumulate from snowfall over long periods of time. When glacier and ice sheets reach their critical thickness they travel or flow.
The term “cryosphere”, as defined in the WCRP Climate and Cryosphere (CliC) Project Science and Co-ordination Plan, collectively describes all forms of frozen water at the Earth’s surface – sea ice, ice sheets, ice caps, glaciers, snow cover and solid precipitation, river and lakeice, permafrost and seasonally frozen ground. The cryosphere spans the globe, though most of the mass of frozen water is found in the polar regions.
