From tiny glaciers on African volcanoes to gigantic ice masses in the Antarctic and from wintry canals in Amsterdam to the permanently frozen tundra in Siberia. Ice, altogether called the cryosphere, is everywhere!
However, our environment is heating up and if there is one thing that ice doesn’t like… In fact, the melting cryosphere is the most visible indicator of climate change. Over the last decades we have observed an ongoing retreat of glaciers across the globe, we experience shorter winter sport seasons, and our satellites record a drastic, continuous decline in the extent of Arctic sea ice.
This has enormous impacts on life as we know it, both from an economical and ecological point of view. A few examples: glacier retreat leads to water conflicts affecting hundreds of millions of people, the disappearance of sea ice accelerates global warming and thawing permafrost releases gargantuan quantities of greenhouse gasses.
So yes, you should care about the cryosphere. Let us help you recogn.ice it.