Recent studies indicate that - due to climate change - the Earth is undergoing rapid changes in all cryospheric components, including polar sea ice shrinkage, mountain glacier recession, thawing permafrost, and diminishing snow cover. This book provides a comprehensive summary of all components of the Earth's cryosphere, reviewing their history, physical and chemical characteristics, geographical distributions, and projected future states. This new edition has been completely updated throughout, and provides state-of-the-art data from GlobSnow-2 CRYOSAT, ICESAT, and GRACE. It includes a comprehensive summary of cryospheric changes in land ice, permafrost, freshwater ice, sea ice, and ice sheets. It discusses the models developed to understand cryosphere processes and predict future changes, including those based on remote sensing, field campaigns, and long-term ground observations. Boasting an extensive bibliography, over 120 figures, and end-of-chapter review questions, it is an ideal resource for students and researchers of the cryosphere.

Polar Ice and Global Warming in Cryosphere Regions is based on recent and past climate variabilities data gathered through satellites and spatial-temporal analysis to explain the role of global warming on cryosphere regions such as high-latitude Himalaya, Arctic and Antarctic regions, and the surrounding Southern Ocean and Arctic Ocean. Through several case studies the book describes the atmospheric processes and their interactions with high-latitude regions toward a better understanding of climate variability. Understanding cryosphere regions helps readers develop plausible models for disaster risk management and policy on different polar events. Features Presents a thorough review on climate variability over the Southern Ocean and Antarctica, and the impact of climate variability and global warming on cryosphere regions Explains how the inferred climatological environmental conditions using natural archives may shed light on climate scenarios in cryosphere regions Includes case studies on globally connected geoscientific phenomena in the Himalayan, Arctic, and Antarctic regions Discusses the use of natural archives to explain the current climate scenario in the cryosphere regions Intended for researchers, academics, and graduate students following oceanography, meteorology, or environmental studies, and those working on projects related to climate change in governmental organizations, institutions, and global NGOs, this book outlines ways in which readers can initiate plans and policies to help mitigate the effects of global warming in these regions.

As the world's highest and largest plateau, the Tibetan Plateau (TP) is referred to as 'the Asian Water Tower' and 'the Third Pole of the World'. A better understanding of the water and energy cycles in the TP is not only critical for revealing the mechanisms of regional land-atmosphere interactions, but also essential for assessing the causes of changes in the cryosphere and hydrosphere in relation to changes in the plateau atmosphere in the Asian monsoon system. Since the TP is an ecologically fragile region that is sensitive to climate change, the systematic evaluation of land-atmosphere interactions in this region also contributes to the quantitative understanding of climate change. This Special Issue mainly presents up-to-date advances in the quantitative assessment of sensible heat flux, soil moisture, soil freeze-thaw processes, vegetation and drought indices, groundwater storage, runoff, condensation, and desublimation, as well as the distinct surface processes over lakes and glaciers in the TP. These selected papers are novel and timely in informing the knowledge on land-atmosphere interactions driven by climate warming. We trust that the collection of these papers will provide quantitative references for more effective assessment and prediction of land-atmosphere interactions in the "Third Pole".

The Routledge Handbook of Highland Asia is the first comprehensive and critical overview of the ethnographic and anthropological work in Highland Asia over the past half a century. Opening up a grand new space for critical engagement, the handbook presents Highland Asia as a world-region that cuts across the traditional divides inherited from colonial and Cold War area divisions - the Indian Subcontinent/South Asia, Southeast Asia, China/East Asia, and Central Asia. Thirty-two chapters assess the history of research, identify ethnographic trends, and evaluate a range of analytical themes that developed in particular settings of Highland Asia. They cover varied landscapes and communities, from Kyrgyzstan to India, from Bhutan to Vietnam and bring local voices and narratives relating trade and tribute, ritual and resistance, pilgrimage and prophecy, modernity and marginalization, capital and cosmos to the fore. The handbook shows that for millennia, Highland Asians have connected far-flung regions through movements of peoples, goods and ideas, and at all times have been the enactors, repositories, and mediators of world-historical processes. Taken together, the contributors and chapters subvert dominant lowland narratives by privileging primarily highland vantages that reveal Highland Asia as an ecumune and prism that refracts and generates global history, social theory, and human imagination. In the currently unfolding Asian Century, this compels us to reorient and re-envision Highland Asia, in ethnography, in theory, and in the connections between this world-region, made of hills, highlands and mountains, and a planetary context. The handbook reveals both regional commonalities and diversities, generalities and specificities, and a broad orientation to key themes in the region. An indispensable reference work, this handbook fills a significant gap in the literature and will be of interest to academics, researchers and students interested in Highland Asia, Zomia Studies, Anthropology, Comparative Politics, Conceptual History and Sociology, Southeast Asian Studies, Central Asian Studies and South Asian Studies as well as Asian Studies in general.

Climate Change and Geodynamics in Polar Regions covers most of the scientific aspects of geoscientific investigation undertaken by Indian researchers in the polar regions: the Antarctic, Arctic, and Himalayan regions. A firm understanding of the cryosphere region's geological perspectives helps students and geoscientists evaluate important scientific queries in the field. This book will help readers understand how the cryosphere’s geoscientific evolution took place in the geological past, climate change throughout history, and how polar regions were affected by global warming. It also discusses how we might expect polar climate to change in the future. A firm understanding of the cryosphere region's geological perspectives helps students and geoscientists answer some of the most puzzling scientific queries and generate new ideas for future research in this field.