Climate change and the melting cryosphere

• Main Author: Mercier, Denis
• Other Authors: Laboratoire de géographie physique : Environnements Quaternaires et Actuels (LGP), Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (UP1)-Université Paris-Est Créteil Val-de-Marne - Paris 12 (UPEC UP12)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Sorbonne Université (SU), Denis Mercier
• Format: Book Part
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 2021
• Subjects: [SHS.GEO]Humanities and Social Sciences/Geography; Antarc*; Antarctic; Climate change; Greenland; Ice Sheet; Sea ice; South pole
• Online Access: https://hal.science/hal-03205985; https://doi.org/10.1002/9781119817925.ch2

International audience Contemporary climate change affects the cryosphere. The consequences of the current melting of the cryosphere due to warming air temperatures affect all components of the climatic and hydrological mechanics. The cryosphere is defined as the cold sphere, and occurs on Earth in various forms from water to solid ice. Between 1979 and 2019, the Arctic sea ice lost 12.9% of its surface area per decade, representing a loss of half of its surface area by the end of the melt season. The dynamics and evolution of the sea ice surrounding the Antarctic continent are of a different nature. The spatial extension of the Antarctic sea ice is symmetrical around the continent from the South Pole and reveals a double spatial astronomical and therefore thermal logic. Between 2006 and 2015, the Greenland ice sheet lost ice mass at an average rate of 278 ± 11 billion tons per year.