About the Book
Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. Pages: 49. Chapters: Cryosphere, Asthenosphere, Lithosphere, Hydrosphere, Crust, Outer core, Schiehallion experiment, Mantle plume, Hotspot, Geothermal gradient, Inner core, Expanding Earth, Kola Superdeep Borehole, Continental crust, Mesoplates, Abundance of elements in Earth's crust, Chiky, Mohorovi i discontinuity, Low-velocity zone, Oceanic crust, San Andreas Fault Observatory at Depth, Travel to the Earth's center, Lehmann discontinuity, Diapir, Core-mantle boundary, Earth's Critical Zone, Sial, Adams-Williamson equation, Seismic tomography, Project Mohole, Mesosphere, NiFe, Brittle-ductile transition zone, Earth physical characteristics tables, Oceanic lithosphere, Continent-ocean boundary, Beijing Anomaly, Conrad discontinuity, International Continental Scientific Drilling Program, Sima, Bertha Rogers, Seismogenic layer. Excerpt: The cryosphere (from the Greek cryos "cold," "frost" or "ice") is the term which collectively describes the portions of the Earth's surface where water is in solid form, including sea ice, lake ice, river ice, snow cover, glaciers, ice caps and ice sheets, and frozen ground (which includes permafrost). Thus there is a wide overlap with the hydrosphere. The cryosphere is an integral part of the global climate system with important linkages and feedbacks generated through its influence on surface energy and moisture fluxes, clouds, precipitation, hydrology, atmospheric and oceanic circulation. Through these feedback processes, the cryosphere plays a significant role in global climate and in climate model response to global change. Frozen water is found on the Earth's surface primarily as snow cover, freshwater ice in lakes and rivers, sea ice, glaciers, ice sheets, and frozen ground and permafrost (permanently-frozen ground). The residence time of water in each of these cryospheric sub-systems varies wid...
