Cryosphere
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The cryosphere is an umbrella term for those portions of Earth's surface where water is in solid form. This includes sea ice, ice on lakes or rivers, snow, glaciers, ice caps, ice sheets, and frozen g
The cryosphere (bottom left) 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
Climate system
Videos
Earth's climate system is a complex system with five interacting components: the atmosphere, the hydrosphere, the cryosphere, the lithosphere and the biosphere. Climate is the statistical characteriza
Earth's atmospheric circulation is driven by the energy imbalance between the equator and the poles. It is further influenced by the rotation of Earth around its own axis.
Carbon is constantly transported between the different elements of the climate system: fixed by living creatures and transported through the ocean and atmosphere.
In atmospheric temperature from 1979 to 2010, determined by MSU NASA satellites, effects appear from aerosols released by major volcanic eruptions (El Chichón and Pinatubo). El Niño is a separate event from ocean variability.