cryosphere

The term refers collectively to the portions of the earth (i.e., a planet) where water is in solid form, including snow cover, floating ice, glaciers, ice caps, ice sheets, seasonally frozen ground and perennially frozen ground (permafrost). The Cryosphere may be divided into the cryoatmosphere, the cryohydrosphere (snow cover, glaciers, and river, lake and sea Ice) and the cryolithosphere (perennially and seasonally cryotic ground, rock glacier). This is an Earth centric definition, other cryospheres will be considered later. Some definitions reffer to that which is sufficiently cold for pure water to freeze for at least a part of each year. It should be noted that "Some authorities exclude the earth's atmosphere from the Earth's Cryosphere; others restrict the term Cryosphere to the regions of the earth's crust where Permafrost exists." Definitions of Cryosphere come from several glossaries including: - PhysicalGeography.net http://physicalgeography.net/ - van Everdingen, Robert, ed., 2005 (1998 revised May 2005). Multi-language glossary of permafrost and related ground-ice terms. Boulder, CO: National Snow and Ice Data Center/World Data Center for Glaciology. [https://globalcryospherewatch.org/reference/glossary_docs/Glossary_of_Permafrost_and_Ground-Ice_IPA_2005.pdf] - American Meteorological Society, 2015. Glossary of Meteorology [online], Available at: http://glossary.ametsoc.org/wiki/Main_Page. [Accessed 27/01/2017]. - EU Climate-ADAPT (The European Climate Adaptation Platform), no date, Glossary, Available from: http://climate-adapt.eea.europa.eu/glossary - IPCC, 2014: Annex II: Glossary [Agard, J., Schipper, E. L. F., (ed.)]. In: Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability. Contribution of Working Group II to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Birkmann, J., Campos, M., Dubeux, C., Nojiri, Y., Olsson, L., Osman-Elasha, B., Pelling, M., Prather, M. J., Rivera-Ferre M. G., Ruppel, O. C., Sallenger, A., Smith, K. R., St. Clair, A. L.,]. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA. [Link] - NSIDC, The National Snow and Ice Data Center glossary is available at https://nsidc.org/cryosphere/glossary, Last accessed [26/01/2016]. - Trombotto, D., P. Wainstein & L. Arenson, 2014, Guía Terminológica de la Geocriología Sudamericana” / “Terminological Guide of the South American Geocryology, 1a ed. 128 pp. [Link] - UNESCO-WMO, 2012, International Glossary of Hydrology, 3rd edition, WMO-No. 385. [Link]

cryosphere

2021-04-14T18:57:18.275Z

For the moment the definition links to liquid water but in the future we might need to link to other materials for other planets, e.g., Mars. Need to make this planet agnostic. Might want to not have the definition link to years as some astronomical body parts might not be in systems with years. Note that in a strict sense, rocks are also frozen but in a practical sense we use terms like "solidified". This maybe something to revist if we add more astrogelogical content.

ENVO:03000143

An astronomical body part which is composed primarily of environmental materials in their frozen form.