Cryosphere

The frozen realm of the cryosphere consists of snow, ice sheets and glaciers, sea ice, and permafrost and frozen ground. Snow and ice have bright reflectance characteristics in the visible spectrum, enabling space‐borne measurements of their spatial extent since the 1960s. Passive microwave sensors have measured sea ice and snow extent for several decades. They also map melt on the ice sheets and detect soil freeze–thaw status. Multispectral and hyperspectral sensors detect snow grain size/specific surface area and retrieve snow albedo from mountains to ice sheets. Space‐borne radars offer information on sea ice type, ice sheet surface roughness, glacier velocity, and frozen soils. Gravity measurements provide estimates of the changing mass of ice sheets and glaciated regions. In recent years, airborne and ground‐based LiDAR and radar remote sensing technologies have advanced and can now measure snow depth, internal snowpack characteristics, ice thickness, sea ice properties, soil freeze–thaw state, and more.

Albedo (alchemy) · Climatology · Cryosphere · Geomorphology · Glacier · Ice divide · Ice sheet · Permafrost · Remote sensing · Sea ice · Sea ice thickness · Snow · Snowpack · Arctic and Antarctic ice dynamics · Climate change and permafrost · Cryospheric studies and observations · Geology · Oceanography