Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Foreword, Preface and Dedication
- Contents
- Summary for Policymakers
- Technical Summary
- Chapters
- Chapter 1 Introduction
- Chapter 2 Observations: Atmosphere and Surface
- Chapter 3 Observations: Ocean Pages
- Chapter 4 Observations: Cryosphere
- Chapter 5 Information from Paleoclimate Archives
- Chapter 6 Carbon and Other Biogeochemical Cycles
- Chapter 7 Clouds and Aerosols
- Chapter 8 Anthropogenic and Natural Radiative Forcing
- Chapter 9 Evaluation of Climate Models
- Chapter 10 Detection and Attribution of Climate Change: from Global to Regional
- Chapter 11 Near-term Climate Change: Projections and Predictability
- Chapter 12 Long-term Climate Change: Projections, Commitments and Irreversibility Pages 1029 to 1076
- Chapter 13 Sea Level Change
- Chapter 14 Climate Phenomena and their Relevance for Future Regional Climate Change
- Annexes
- Index
Chapter 4 - Observations: Cryosphere
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2014
- Frontmatter
- Foreword, Preface and Dedication
- Contents
- Summary for Policymakers
- Technical Summary
- Chapters
- Chapter 1 Introduction
- Chapter 2 Observations: Atmosphere and Surface
- Chapter 3 Observations: Ocean Pages
- Chapter 4 Observations: Cryosphere
- Chapter 5 Information from Paleoclimate Archives
- Chapter 6 Carbon and Other Biogeochemical Cycles
- Chapter 7 Clouds and Aerosols
- Chapter 8 Anthropogenic and Natural Radiative Forcing
- Chapter 9 Evaluation of Climate Models
- Chapter 10 Detection and Attribution of Climate Change: from Global to Regional
- Chapter 11 Near-term Climate Change: Projections and Predictability
- Chapter 12 Long-term Climate Change: Projections, Commitments and Irreversibility Pages 1029 to 1076
- Chapter 13 Sea Level Change
- Chapter 14 Climate Phenomena and their Relevance for Future Regional Climate Change
- Annexes
- Index
Summary
Executive Summary
The cryosphere, comprising snow, river and lake ice, sea ice, glaciers, ice shelves and ice sheets, and frozen ground, plays a major role in the Earth's climate system through its impact on the surface energy budget, the water cycle, primary productivity, surface gas exchange and sea level. The cryosphere is thus a fundamental control on the physical, biological and social environment over a large part of the Earth's surface. Given that all of its components are inherently sensitive to temperature change over a wide range of time scales, the cryosphere is a natural integrator of climate variability and provides some of the most visible signatures of climate change.
Since AR4, observational technology has improved and key time series of measurements have been lengthened, such that our identification and measurement of changes and trends in all components of the cryosphere has been substantially improved, and our understanding of the specific processes governing their responses has been refined. Since the AR4, observations show that there has been a continued net loss of ice from the cryosphere, although there are significant differences in the rate of loss between cryospheric components and regions. The major changes occurring to the cryosphere are as follows.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Climate Change 2013 – The Physical Science BasisWorking Group I Contribution to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, pp. 317 - 382Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2014
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