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The Cryosphere and the climate changes

The Cryosphere is all parts of the Earths surface that water is in solid form,
including sea ice, lake ice, river ice, snow cover, glaciers, ice caps, ice sheets, and frozen
ground.
Icebergs are pieces of ice that formed on land and float in an ocean or lake. They
are formed when chunks break off from glaciers, ice shelves, or a bigger iceberg. Icebergs
travel with ocean currents, sometimes smashing up against the shore or getting caught in
shallow waters. The most icebergs in the Atlantic come from Glaciers in western
Greenland.
An ice shelf is a thick, floating slab of ice that forms where a glacier or ice flows
down a coastline. Ice shelves are in about half the continent. They sluggish the motion of
ice streams and glaciers like. But the temperatures are increasing and as a result we can
see a growing number of melt ponds. In consequence ice shelves weaken and collapse.
Larsen B ice shelf, was 12,000 years collapsed in just five weeks. An ice sheet is a chunk
of glacier ice that covers the land surrounding it and is greater than 50,000 kilometers
wide. Due to climate change one of the most important and fastest ice sheet, Greenland,
has changed drastically. The ice become thinned, and the front retreated a lot. Between
1997 and 2003, the glacier's flow rate nearly doubled to five feet an hour.
Offshore, sea ice forms when the surface of the ocean freezes, pushing salt out of
the ice. The cold salty surface water starts to sink, pumping deeper water out of the way,
powering global ocean circulation. Sea ice varies each year. Researches show that sea
ice has shrunk dramatically, since 1979 winter Arctic ice extent has decreased about 3%
to 4% per decade. The consequences can be drastic. This cycle never stop because as
polar ice decreases, more open water could promote greater heating. More heating could

Sayeny de vila Gonalves

lead to faster melting. If this it continue the Arctic Ocean could be ice-free in the summer
by the end of the century.
Every year millions of people have contact with Cryosphere. Snow every year
and the mountains store water. Snow melt provides around 75% of the water resources
used in the American west. Besides, a winter with snow produces a rich vegetation in
spring. Permafrost is a perennially frozen ground thay is found at high elevations in the
lower latitudes. It exists in all word, like in the Rocky Mountains of North America.

References:
National Snow and Ice Data Center." All About the Cryosphere. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 Mar.
2015.
Dunbar, Brian. "A Tour of the Cryosphere 2009." NASA. NASA, 02 Sept. 2009. Web.
30 Mar. 2015.

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