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Looking for facts and information? See About the Cryosphere.
On Thin Ice:
Expedition to a Crumbling Ice Shelf
Scientists blog from Antarctica and provide a glimpse of what it's like to do research in the field. Read their blog ...
Current Conditions
Icelights: Answers to your burning questions about ice and climate
What's hot in the news around climate and sea ice and what are scientists talking about now? Read more...
What is the Cryosphere?
When scientists talk about the cryosphere, they mean the places on Earth where water is in its solid form, frozen into ice or snow. Read more ...
Areas that contain much permafrost can look barren. But plants and animals prosper here in the summer days, when the top layer of frozen ground thaws. The caribou in this photograph, in the Noatak National Preserve, Alaska, are migrating in the early fall.
—Credit: Andrew Balser
Ecology is the study of the complex ways that living things interact with their environment. In places with frozen ground and permafrost, plants and animals have to deal with unique challenges. For example, how can an animal find water to drink if the water is frozen into ice? And how do a plant's roots stay alive in frozen ground?
To survive in places with frozen soil, living things have evolved some interesting adaptations.
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