TC cover
Co-editors-in-chief: Chris Derksen, Christian Haas, Christian Hauck, Nanna Bjørnholt Karlsson & Thomas Mölg
eISSN: TC 1994-0424, TCD 1994-0440

The Cryosphere (TC) is a not-for-profit international scientific journal dedicated to the publication and discussion of research articles, short communications, and review papers on all aspects of frozen water and frozen ground on Earth and on other planetary bodies.

The main subject areas are ice sheets and glaciers, permafrost, river and lake ice, seasonal snow cover, and sea ice, including remote sensing, numerical modeling, in situ, and laboratory approaches, and studies of the interaction of the cryosphere with the Earth system. Manuscripts with a focus on cryospheric research that include perspectives from social science, humanities, and other disciplines outside the natural sciences are also welcome.

Journal metrics

TC is indexed in the Web of Science, Scopus, Google Scholar, etc. We refrain from displaying the journal metrics prominently on the landing page since citation metrics used in isolation do not describe importance, impact, or quality of a journal. However, these metrics can be found on the journal metrics page.

News

07 Aug 2025 New radar altimetry datasets of Greenland and Antarctic surface elevation, 1991–2012

Increasing melting rates of the polar ice sheets are contributing more and more to sea level rise. Due to the remoteness and expanse of ice sheets, these changes are mainly observed using satellites. However, the accuracy of these measurements depends on the processing of these datasets. Here the authors use advanced algorithms to provide improved historical ice sheet elevation measurements, derived from satellite altimeters flying between 1991 and 2012, which will benefit cryospheric applications. Please read more.

07 Aug 2025 New radar altimetry datasets of Greenland and Antarctic surface elevation, 1991–2012

Increasing melting rates of the polar ice sheets are contributing more and more to sea level rise. Due to the remoteness and expanse of ice sheets, these changes are mainly observed using satellites. However, the accuracy of these measurements depends on the processing of these datasets. Here the authors use advanced algorithms to provide improved historical ice sheet elevation measurements, derived from satellite altimeters flying between 1991 and 2012, which will benefit cryospheric applications. Please read more.

08 May 2025 Speed-up, slowdown, and redirection of ice flow on neighbouring ice streams in the Pope, Smith, and Kohler region of West Antarctica

The authors used satellite observations to measure recent changes in ice speed and flow direction in the Pope, Smith, and Kohler region of West Antarctica (2005–2022). They found substantial speed-up on seven ice streams of up to 87 %. Read more.

08 May 2025 Speed-up, slowdown, and redirection of ice flow on neighbouring ice streams in the Pope, Smith, and Kohler region of West Antarctica

The authors used satellite observations to measure recent changes in ice speed and flow direction in the Pope, Smith, and Kohler region of West Antarctica (2005–2022). They found substantial speed-up on seven ice streams of up to 87 %. Read more.

13 Mar 2025 New agreement between California Digital Library and Copernicus Publications

We are delighted to announce a new agreement between the California Digital Library and Copernicus Publications. The University of California will cover 50% of article processing charges (APCs) for manuscripts affiliated with any of their research units. Read more.

13 Mar 2025 New agreement between California Digital Library and Copernicus Publications

We are delighted to announce a new agreement between the California Digital Library and Copernicus Publications. The University of California will cover 50% of article processing charges (APCs) for manuscripts affiliated with any of their research units. Read more.

Recent papers

07 Aug 2025
Radar-equivalent snowpack: reducing the number of snow layers while retaining their microwave properties and bulk snow mass
Julien Meloche, Nicolas R. Leroux, Benoit Montpetit, Vincent Vionnet, and Chris Derksen
The Cryosphere, 19, 2949–2962, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-19-2949-2025,https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-19-2949-2025, 2025
Short summary
07 Aug 2025
New radar altimetry datasets of Greenland and Antarctic surface elevation, 1991–2012
Maya Raghunath Suryawanshi, Malcolm McMillan, Jennifer Maddalena, Fanny Piras, Jérémie Aublanc, Jean-Alexis Daguzé, Clara Grau, and Qi Huang
The Cryosphere, 19, 2855–2880, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-19-2855-2025,https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-19-2855-2025, 2025
Short summary
07 Aug 2025
Quantifying the interplay of Meltwater and Ice-Albedo Feedbacks in the Arctic Ice-Ocean System
Haohao Zhang, Andrea Storto, Xuezhi Bai, and Chunxue Yang
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-3030,https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-3030, 2025
Preprint under review for TC (discussion: open, 0 comments)
Short summary
06 Aug 2025
Assimilation of L-band interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) snow depth retrievals for improved snowpack quantification
Prabhakar Shrestha and Ana P. Barros
The Cryosphere, 19, 2895–2911, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-19-2895-2025,https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-19-2895-2025, 2025
Short summary
06 Aug 2025
Meltwater from the Greenland ice sheet and its water isotope distribution in Dickson Fjord, East Greenland
Fleur Rooijakkers, Ebbe Poulsen, Eugenio Ruiz-Castillo, and Søren Rysgaard
The Cryosphere, 19, 2881–2894, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-19-2881-2025,https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-19-2881-2025, 2025
Short summary

Highlight articles

23 Jul 2025
Thermal state of permafrost in the Central Andes (27–34° S)
Cassandra E. M. Koenig, Christin Hilbich, Christian Hauck, Lukas U. Arenson, and Pablo Wainstein
The Cryosphere, 19, 2653–2676, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-19-2653-2025,https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-19-2653-2025, 2025
Short summary Co-editor-in-chief
14 Jul 2025
Calibrated sea level contribution from the Amundsen Sea sector, West Antarctica, under RCP8.5 and Paris 2C scenarios
Sebastian H. R. Rosier, G. Hilmar Gudmundsson, Adrian Jenkins, and Kaitlin A. Naughten
The Cryosphere, 19, 2527–2557, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-19-2527-2025,https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-19-2527-2025, 2025
Short summary Co-editor-in-chief
08 May 2025
The system of atmosphere, land, ice and ocean in the region near the 79N Glacier in northeast Greenland: synthesis and key findings from the Greenland Ice Sheet–Ocean Interaction (GROCE) experiment
Torsten Kanzow, Angelika Humbert, Thomas Mölg, Mirko Scheinert, Matthias Braun, Hans Burchard, Francesca Doglioni, Philipp Hochreuther, Martin Horwath, Oliver Huhn, Maria Kappelsberger, Jürgen Kusche, Erik Loebel, Katrina Lutz, Ben Marzeion, Rebecca McPherson, Mahdi Mohammadi-Aragh, Marco Möller, Carolyne Pickler, Markus Reinert, Monika Rhein, Martin Rückamp, Janin Schaffer, Muhammad Shafeeque, Sophie Stolzenberger, Ralph Timmermann, Jenny Turton, Claudia Wekerle, and Ole Zeising
The Cryosphere, 19, 1789–1824, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-19-1789-2025,https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-19-1789-2025, 2025
Short summary Co-editor-in-chief
08 May 2025
Speed-up, slowdown, and redirection of ice flow on neighbouring ice streams in the Pope, Smith, and Kohler region of West Antarctica
Heather L. Selley, Anna E. Hogg, Benjamin J. Davison, Pierre Dutrieux, and Thomas Slater
The Cryosphere, 19, 1725–1738, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-19-1725-2025,https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-19-1725-2025, 2025
Short summary Co-editor-in-chief
04 Apr 2025
Inter-model differences in 21st century glacier runoff for the world's major river basins
Finn Wimberly, Lizz Ultee, Lilian Schuster, Matthias Huss, David R. Rounce, Fabien Maussion, Sloan Coats, Jonathan Mackay, and Erik Holmgren
The Cryosphere, 19, 1491–1511, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-19-1491-2025,https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-19-1491-2025, 2025
Short summary Co-editor-in-chief

Notice on the current situation in Ukraine

To show our support for Ukraine, all fees for papers from authors (first or corresponding authors) affiliated to Ukrainian institutions are automatically waived, regardless if these papers are co-authored by scientists affiliated to Russian and/or Belarusian institutions. The only exception will be if the corresponding author or first contact (contractual partner of Copernicus) are from a Russian and/or Belarusian institution, in that case the APCs are not waived.

In accordance with current European restrictions, Copernicus Publications does not step into business relations with and issue APC-invoices (articles processing charges) to Russian and Belarusian institutions. The peer-review process and scientific exchange of our journals including preprint posting is not affected. However, these restrictions require that the first contact (contractual partner of Copernicus) has an affiliation and invoice address outside Russia or Belarus.