Cryosphere

The Earth's cryosphere (the frozen water on our planet) currently covers about 10% of the Earth's surface.

The cryosphere includes areas of Earth where water is found in its frozen forms, such as snow and ice. A new study led by China’s Lanzhou University and published in an American Geographical Union journal suggests that the cryosphere shrunk by about 87,000 km² per year from 1979 and 2016 due to climate change.

Climate change has a strong effect on the cryosphere.

Eventually, a complement of visible, infrared, and microwave sensors will be needed to provide all the information required in the cryosphere[…]

This book attempts to deal integratively with all elements of the cryosphere in the context of a changing global environment. Not only is that global environment changing with respect to climate, but the accelerating pressures on the environment from anthropogenic activity are complicating our understanding of cryospheric change.

The border has been fixed since 1861, when Italy became a unified state. But for the past century the surface area of the “cryosphere”, the zone of glaciers, permanent snow cover and permafrost, has been shrinking steadily, with dramatic acceleration in the past five years.