Our paper presents the Conceptual Cryosphere Hydrology Framework (CCHF), a tool to enable more rapid development and intercomparison of cryosphere process representations. Using the CCHF, we demonstrate that some common existing degree index cryosphere models are not well suited for assessing impacts across climates, even though these models appear to perform well under a common evaluation strategy. We show that more robust models can be formulated without increasing data input requirements.