1.4.5 Cryospheric Topics
The cryosphere, which includes the ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica, continental (including tropical) glaciers, snow, sea ice, river and lake ice, permafrost and seasonally frozen ground, is an important component of the climate system. The cryosphere derives its importance to the climate system from a variety of effects, including its high reflectivity (albedo) for solar radiation, its low thermal conductivity, its large thermal inertia, its potential for affecting ocean circulation (through exchange of freshwater and heat) and atmospheric circulation (through topographic changes), its large potential for affecting sea level (through growth and melt of land ice), and its potential for affecting greenhouse gases (through changes in permafrost) (Chapter 4).
Studies of the cryospheric albedo feedback have a long history. The albedo is the fraction of solar energy reflected back to space. Over snow and ice, the albedo (about 0.7 to 0.9) is large compared to that over the oceans (<0.1). In a warming climate, it is anticipated that the cryosphere would shrink, the Earth’s overall albedo would decrease and more solar energy would be absorbed to warm the Earth still further. This powerful feedback loop was recognised in the 19th century by Croll (1890) and was first introduced in climate models by Budyko (1969) and Sellers (1969). But although the principle of the albedo feedback is simple, a quantitative understanding of the effect is still far from complete. For instance, it is not clear whether this mechanism is the main reason for the high-latitude amplification of the warming signal.
The potential cryospheric impact on ocean circulation and sea level are of particular importance. There may be ‘large-scale discontinuities’ (IPCC, 2001a) resulting from both the shutdown of the large-scale meridional circulation of the world oceans (see Section 1.4.6) and the disintegration of large continental ice sheets. Mercer (1968, 1978) proposed that atmospheric warming could cause the ice shelves of western Antarctica to disintegrate and that as a consequence the entire West Antarctic Ice Sheet (10% of the antarctic ice volume) would lose its land connection and come afloat, causing a sea level rise of about five metres.
The importance of permafrost-climate feedbacks came to be realised widely only in the 1990s, starting with the works of Kvenvolden (1988, 1993), MacDonald (1990) and Harriss et al. (1993). As permafrost thaws due to a warmer climate, CO2 and CH4 trapped in permafrost are released to the atmosphere. Since CO2 and CH4 are greenhouse gases, atmospheric temperature is likely to increase in turn, resulting in a feedback loop with more permafrost thawing. The permafrost and seasonally thawed soil layers at high latitudes contain a significant amount (about one-quarter) of the global total amount of soil carbon. Because global warming signals are amplified in high-latitude regions, the potential for permafrost thawing and consequent greenhouse gas releases is thus large.
In situ monitoring of the cryosphere has a long tradition. For instance, it is important for fisheries and agriculture. Seagoing communities have documented sea ice extent for centuries. Records of thaw and freeze dates for lake and river ice start with Lake Suwa in Japan in 1444, and extensive records of snowfall in China were made during the Qing Dynasty (1644–1912). Records of glacial length go back to the mid-1500s. Internationally coordinated, long-term glacier observations started in 1894 with the establishment of the International Glacier Commission in Zurich, Switzerland. The longest time series of a glacial mass balance was started in 1946 at the Storglaciären in northern Sweden, followed by Storbreen in Norway (begun in 1949). Today a global network of mass balance monitoring for some 60 glaciers is coordinated through the World Glacier Monitoring Service. Systematic measurements of permafrost (thermal state and active layer) began in earnest around 1950 and were coordinated under the Global Terrestrial Network for Permafrost.
The main climate variables of the cryosphere (extent, albedo, topography and mass) are in principle observable from space, given proper calibration and validation through in situ observing efforts. Indeed, satellite data are required in order to have full global coverage. The polar-orbiting Nimbus 5 satellite, launched in 1972, yielded the earliest all-weather, all-season imagery of global sea ice, using microwave instruments (Parkinson et al., 1987), and enabled a major advance in the scientific understanding of the dynamics of the cryosphere. Launched in 1978, the Television Infrared Observation Satellite (TIROS-N) yielded the first monitoring from space of snow on land surfaces (Dozier et al., 1981). The number of cryospheric elements now routinely monitored from space is growing, and current satellites are now addressing one of the more challenging elements, variability of ice volume.
Climate modelling results have pointed to high-latitude regions as areas of particular importance and ecological vulnerability to global climate change. It might seem logical to expect that the cryosphere overall would shrink in a warming climate or expand in a cooling climate. However, potential changes in precipitation, for instance due to an altered hydrological cycle, may counter this effect both regionally and globally. By the time of the TAR, several climate models incorporated physically based treatments of ice dynamics, although the land ice processes were only rudimentary. Improving representation of the cryosphere in climate models is still an area of intense research and continuing progress (Chapter 8).