The cryosphere is an all-encompassing term for the portions of Earth's surface where water is in solid form, including sea ice, lake ice, river ice, snow cover, glaciers, ice caps, ice sheets, and frozen ground. Thus, there is a wide overlap with the hydrosphere. The cryosphere is an integral part of the global climate system. It also has important feedbacks on the climate system. These feedbacks come from the cryosphere's influence on surface energy and moisture fluxes, clouds, the water cycle, atmospheric and oceanic circulation.
The cryosphere is one of five components of the climate system. The others are the atmosphere, the hydrosphere, the lithosphere and the biosphere.
The Taschachferner glacier in the Ötztal Alps in Austria. The mountain to the left is the Wildspitze (3.768 m), second highest in Austria. To the right is an area with open crevasses where the glacier flows over a kind of large cliff.
Aerial view of the ice sheet on Greenland's east coast
Broken pieces of Arctic sea ice with a snow cover
Ice is water that is frozen into a solid state, typically forming at or below temperatures of 0 °C, 32 °F, or 273.15 K. As a naturally occurring crystalline inorganic solid with an ordered structure, ice is considered to be a mineral. Depending on the presence of impurities such as particles of soil or bubbles of air, it can appear transparent or a more or less opaque bluish-white color.
An ice block, photographed at the Duluth Canal Park in Minnesota
This iceberg can stay afloat in spite of its size because it is less dense than water
So-called feather ice on the plateau near Alta, Norway. The crystals form at temperatures below −30 °C (−22 °F) and contain a lot of trapped air, making them light enough to be supported by the thin branch
Frozen waterfall in southeast New York
