| Session Details | |
| Section | HS - Hydrological Sciences |
| Session Title | Global Cryosphere And Its Challenges |
| Main Convener | Dr. Yong Zhang (Northwest Institute of Eco-Environment and Resources, CAS, China) |
| Co-convener(s) | Dr. Jing Ming (China Meteorological Administration, China) |
| Session Description | The Earth’s cryosphere denotes the solid water contained in the land, atmosphere, ocean, and lithosphere, including ice sheets, snow cover, permafrost, mountain glaciers and river/lake ice. With global warming, the cryosphere has experienced an unprecedented change in its elements. The sea-ice area in the Arctic is in the fastest recession since the 1980s. Sea level rise caused by global ice melting (Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets and mountain glaciers) is a great concern to the people in small islands and coastal zones. The active layers of the permafrost in the Tibetan Plateau have been thickening during the past decades. Regional ecological environments in the Plateau are to encounter serious challenges. Mountain glaciers, extremely important to the livelihood of the people in Asia, are experiencing fast melting. Accompanying with the melting, Glacier Lake Outburst Floods (GLOFs) are fatal to the mountain inhabitants in the highly elevated Himalaya in the urgent phase; and the problem of water sustainability is a great issue to the Asian people in the long-term period. Green House Gases (GHGs) emissions, anthropogenic aerosols, dust, and ashes by wild fires in the atmosphere and their deposition in snow and ice, and regional reducing precipitations can induce total recession of the cryosphere. Cryospheric changes will cause deep changes in climate and social society at global and regional scales. The presentations called in this session will be concerned with, but not limited to, revealing the changing facts and scenarios of the future of the cryosphere, exploring cryospheric changing mechanism, relationship between cryosphere and climate change diagnosis and analysis using a cryosphere-atmosphere coupled general circulation models as well as examining trends, predicting possible changes in cryosphere and severe climatic hazards in East Asia, and providing recommendations how to plot the current and future adaptation and mitigation policies. |