The global cryosphere: past, present and future
The global cryosphere: past, present and future
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DOI：
10.1080/1088937x.2012.665398
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发表时间：
2012-03
期刊：
影响因子：
2.6
通讯作者：
F. Nelson
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
F. Nelson
根据这本优秀的新书，术语冰冻圈来自希腊语kryos，意为冰冷，它共同描述了地球表面的冰冻部分，包括海冰，湖冰，河冰，积雪，冰川，冰盖和冻土。这卷是一个重大贡献，我们的理解冰冻圈，结合作者的第一手知识的问题，并提出了一个综合的广泛的出版文献。出版商声称，这是第一本涉及冰冻圈所有组成部分的教科书，为环境科学、地理学、地质学、冰川学、水文学、水资源工程和海洋科学的高年级本科生和研究生提供了冰冻圈过程的简明而全面的摘要。他们还声称为来自一系列科学的研究人员提供了一个关于冰冻圈过程的最新摘要。为了评估这些说法，这篇评论概述了这本书的关键组成部分，并考虑了这本书的组装情况。首先，值得注意的是作者的资历。罗杰巴里曾任世界冰川学数据中心主任和位于博尔德的科罗拉多大学地理学教授。他是气候变化、北极和山区环境以及冰雪过程方面的权威。他是多个奖项和奖章的获得者，包括皇家地理学会的创始人奖章。T.Y. Gan是阿尔伯塔大学的教授，对雪水文学和气候变化影响感兴趣。因此，这些作者很好地总结了最先进的，现在它已经成为广泛认识到，冰冻圈是地球系统的一个关键和敏感的组成部分，特别是在全球变暖的背景下。这本书有四个部分，分为十一章。前两部分包括陆地和海洋冰冻圈。侧重于历史背景，特点，分布，物理过程，数值模拟和交叉联系的治疗是广泛的，与这些冰冻圈组成部分的每一个一章。这些章节充满了迷人的事实;我对每个主题的简短历史处理印象特别深刻。然而，存在一些明显的差距，声称“解决冰冻圈的所有组成部分”是夸张的。例如，在冰川和冰帽一章中，我发现令人惊讶的是，几乎没有提到冰川侵蚀和沉积过程，这肯定是解释过去冰冻圈过程的一个关键方面？同样，冰川属性的几个方面，如冰川流动，是在一个肤浅和不平衡的方式处理，但作者确实提到了一些关键的文本，解决相关的主题更严格。第三部分涉及冰冻圈的过去、历史和未来。鉴于过去冰川历史的研究量，没有一本书，更不用说这里的一个简短的章节，可以公正地讨论这个话题，我没有看到许多涉及第四纪和更古老冰川的关键专著和教科书的参考资料。本章的读者不会对我们对过去冰冻圈变化的理解有一个特别平衡的看法。相比之下，关于冰冻圈最近和未来变化的成对章节更有价值，它将最近的观测结果与基于IPCC情景的全球影响预测相结合。的确，有必要总结一下最近的这些变化（第10.3章）。引述如下：
The term cryosphere, according to this excellent new volume, is derived from the Greek word kryos for icy cold, which collectively describes the frozen parts of the Earth’s surface, including sea ice, lake ice, river ice, snow cover, glaciers, ice sheets, and frozen ground. This volume is a major contribution to our understanding of the cryosphere, by combining the authors’ first-hand knowledge of the issues and presenting a synthesis of a vast range of published literature. The publishers claim that this is the first textbook to address all components of the cryosphere, by providing a concise, but comprehensive summary of cryospheric processes for upper-level undergraduates and graduates in environmental science, geography, geology, glaciology, hydrology, water-resource engineering and ocean sciences. They claim also to provide a superb up-to-date summary of cryospheric processes for researchers from a range of sciences. To evaluate these claims, this review outlines the key components of the book, and considers how well the book has been assembled. First, it is worth noting the credentials of the authors. Roger Barry was formerly Director of the World Data Centre for Glaciology and Professor of Geography at the University of Colorado at Boulder. He is a leading authority on climate change, Arctic and mountain environments, and snow and ice processes. He is the recipient of several awards and medals, including the Founder’s Medal of the Royal Geographical Society. T.Y. Gan is a Professor at the University of Alberta with interests in snow hydrology and climate change impacts. These authors are thus well placed to summarize the state-of-the-art, now that it has become widely recognized that the cryosphere represents a critical and sensitive component of the Earth System, especially in the context of global warming. The book has four parts, subdivided into eleven chapters. The first two parts cover the terrestrial and marine cryosphere. Focussing on historical background, characteristics, distribution, physical processes, numerical modelling and cross-linkages the treatment is wide-ranging, with a chapter for each of these cryosphere components. These chapters are full of fascinating facts; I was particularly impressed with the brief historical treatments of each topic. There are, however, some notable gaps, and the claim to ‘address all components of the cryosphere’ is an exaggeration. For example, in the Glaciers and Ice Caps chapter, I found it surprising that there was little mention of glacial erosional and depositional processes, surely a key aspect of interpreting past cryospheric processes? Similarly, several aspects of the attributes of glaciers, such as glacier flow, are treated in a superficial and unbalanced fashion but the authors do refer to some of the key texts that address related topics more rigorously. Part III deals with the past history and future of the cryosphere. Given the volume of research on past glacial history, no single book, let alone the one short chapter here, can do justice to this topic, and I did not see reference to many of the key monographs and textbooks dealing with Quaternary and older glaciations. Readers of this chapter will not get a particularly balanced view of our understanding of past cryospheric changes. In contrast, the paired chapter on recent and future changes in the cryosphere is much more valuable, combining recent observations with predictions of global impacts based on IPCC scenarios. Indeed, it is worth summarizing what these recent changes have been (Chapter 10.3). To quote: