Cryospheric processes on land and sea are strongly affected by climate change and variations. This broad session will be divided in blocks were we address research of snow and glaciers, ice caps, inland ice and ice shelves, as well as sea ice both in the Arctic and Antarctica.  Investigating changes, processes and the identification of key quantities are crucial for an improvement of the understanding. We seek contributions by means of observations, remote sensing and modeling, including large scale dynamics, deformation and evolution of ice masses, as well as processes at interfaces.

It is estimated that glaciers and ice caps contribute about one third of the total current sea level rise, and will continue to do so in the timescale of fifty to hundred years. Energy and mass balance in past and future in response to regional climate forcing highly impacts the mass flux towards the sea. Improved process understanding is essential.

Ice shelves are sensitive elements in the climate as they are sandwiched between atmosphere and ocean, which both undergo changes. We address ice shelves concerning flow dynamics, temporal evolution of ice shelves and the interaction between inland ice and ice shelves, ice shelves and ocean, as well as ice shelves and atmosphere.

Calving glaciers and ice shelves play a major role in delivering land ice to the world ocean. The break-up events of Antarctic ice shelves exemplify their potential to become unstable, resulting in reduced buttressing of inflowing glaciers, which respond itself with accelerated flow. Ice caps located in moderate climate are polythermal ice masses, which are highly sensitive to atmospheric warming that changes their mass balance, hydrology and dynamics.  In the Arctic changes in the frequency of calving events may also impact planned infrastructure and traffic related to sea transport, fisheries and oil exploration, where activity is expected to increase significantly over the coming decades.

The reduced albedo of snow and declined (sea) ice cover will affect the regional climate over land and ocean.

The sea ice extent in the Arctic declined in the last 30 years dramatically. We address all aspects of sea ice change and variability, processes and future scenarios. Contribution from remote sensing observations of sea ice extent, in situ measurements of sea ice thickness and structure, as well as sea ice modelling are welcome.