What does snow do for the Earth?

Snow is a natural part of the ecological cycle in this part of the world and when we start seeing the cycle becoming all messed up, the consequences begin to pile up which can be far more problematic than the pile up of snow at the end of our driveway that by and large we haven’t had to deal with much over the past few winters. read more

Once snow crystals form in the atmosphere, they grow by absorbing surrounding water droplets. The snowflakes we end up seeing on the ground are an accumulation of these ice crystals. This magnified image of snow crystals was captured by a low-temperature scanning electron microscope (SEM). read more

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