The cryosphere in pictures

Life on a melting planet

Welcome to another edition of Seascapes – a collection of incredible oceanic artwork and photography. 

Let’s dive in 🎨

Originating from the Greek word ‘kryos’ meaning frost or ice cold, the cryosphere encompasses all the frozen water on Earths’ surface. From the vast ice sheets of Antarctica and Greenland to seasonal snowfall, from sea ice, glaciers, and icebergs, to frozen rivers, lakes, and permafrost, 70% of the world’s freshwater exists as snow or ice. Meanwhile, around 10% of Earth’s land area is covered by glaciers or ice sheets. 

The cryosphere shapes every aspect of life across the globe, playing an incredibly important part in the functioning of our planet. Mountain glaciers feed the world's major rivers, providing freshwater to nearly half of the global population. Ice caps play a crucial role in regulating Earth's temperature by reflecting solar radiation back into space.  Permafrost holds massive amounts of carbon, locked away in the frozen land. So as our planet warms, it’s these vital systems and their essential benefits that are melting away before our eyes. 

The implications are more devastating than we seem to be able to grasp. Antarctica's ice sheet alone, if completely melted, would raise global sea levels by 58 metres. This loss of ice creates a vicious cycle too – as it melts, darker surfaces are exposed, which absorb more heat, causing more ice to melt. 

This extraordinary part of our planet is both brutal and beautiful, powerful but vulnerable, deadly but dying. Losing it would be catastrophic, and at the very, very, least, a great loss of beauty. Here are some extraordinary photographs depicting this undervalued part of our planet.

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A flipped iceberg in the Weddell Sea exposes the dark-green sea ice underneath. Scientists think it may be caused by iron oxides in the ice. Photo by David Menzel/Climate Visuals.

The hidden underside of an iceberg , titled ‘Ice Monster’ by photographer Laurent Ballesta. Taken on the Adélie coast in Antarctica.

Amphu Lapcha Tsho, Nepal, alongside cultured samples of water, sand, and rock taken from the region. Photo by Christopher Parsens as part of Project Pressure.

A different perspective. Photo by Keith Ladzinski.

Greenland landscape. Photo by Keith Ladzinski.

Photo by Clyde Vaughan.

An Antarctic leopard seal. Photo by Keith Ladzinski.

Vatnajökull, the largest and most voluminous ice cap of Iceland.

Larvae krill gather near sea ice for protection against predators, and it carries them to food-rich areas. Photo by Ulrich Freier.

In 2002, the largest ice collapse ever recorded occurred when a huge section broke off the Larsen B ice shelf in Antarctica. Photo by NASA.

Elusive narwhals swim through silt water in the Canadian Arctic. Photo by Colin Tennant.

A sharp-angled, tabular iceberg floating among sea ice off the Larsen C ice shelf. Photo taken on a NASA IceBridge flight.

An Icelandic glacial river. Photo by Andrey Ermolaev.

A stoat from the French Alps jumps into the air in what the photographer described as an “expression of exuberance”. Photo by Jose Manuel Grandío.

Sunrise over Tasman Lake, New Zealand. Photo by Paul Reiffer.

A frozen Lake Baikal in Siberia, the world’s oldest lake. Photo by Sergey Pesterev.

Polar bears moved into an abandoned weather station in Kolyuchin, in the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug of the Russian Federation. Photo by Dmitry Kokh. See more here.

Stein Glacier in Switzerland retreated 550m in just 9 years. Photo by James Balog and Extreme Ice Survey.

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