Mountain glaciers are important freshwater reservoirs. Quantifying their loss is essential for forecasting water availability. While glacier retreat is well studied in many regions, glacier loss on the Nevados de Chillán volcanic complex in south-central Chile remains uncertain. Using satellite and drone images, we find all 28 glaciers on Nevados de Chillán lost volume over the past 7 decades, with melt rates accelerating markedly since 2000. 

Surface hoar crystals occasionally grow on the top of snowpacks overnight. Little work has focused on climatic conditions leading to surface hoar. We use data from three field campaigns in the Colorado Rockies to investigate. We show that surface hoar events decline as the climate warms, and that there may be 14 % fewer events per year in the future. There is still work needed to reconcile measured amounts of surface hoar crystals, models, and the relationship with turbulent air.

Strong winds can lift snow into the air, which influences the energy exchange between the surface and the atmosphere. We studied this phenomenon over the Greenland Ice Sheet using observations and a climate model. We found that blowing snow traps heat near the surface like a blanket and reflects incoming sunlight like a mirror. Simulating these processes increases the net energy at the surface and improves model accuracy. Therefore, we recommend including these effects in climate models.

Subglacial topography controls how Antarctic ice flows towards the ocean and responds to climate change. In the Denman–Shackleton region, deep valleys connect the ice-sheet interior to the coast. Denman Glacier occupies one of the deepest and could contribute significantly to sea-level rise. Combining new ground-based gravity measurements with airborne data and statistical modelling reveals a more complex landscape than existing maps and a potential vulnerability to unstable retreat.

Melting alpine snowfields develop cup-shaped hollows that reduce how much sunlight the snow reflects, accelerating melt. Over three seasons in the Swiss Alps, we monitored how these hollows form and grow with a laser scanner. Two processes reduce reflectivity at the same time: hollows trap light through internal reflections, and meltwater washes dark particles into them. Because they are difficult to separate, surface roughness alone emerges as a proxy for overall reflectivity loss.

Lakes at glacier margins can drain beneath the ice in devastating, floods called jökulhlaups. We present the first 2D model of jökulhlaup propagation, first applying it to a synthetic glacier, before then assessing its ability to reproduce an observed record of lake fill-drain cycles in Greenland. Our results match a 17-year record of flood timing but underpredicts peak discharge likely because we are missing certain physical processes. Our results hold promise for simulating jökulhlaups.

This study presents a 1-km permafrost map of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau for 2020, generated via a frost number model and space-for-time substitution. Permafrost covers 1.038×10⁶ km² (39.35 %), a 1.82 % decline since 2010, while seasonally frozen ground covers 1.466×10⁶ km² (55.57 %). Validated against boreholes, the map achieves 0.84 accuracy (Kappa= 0.58). This map offers a critical, up-to-date baseline for cryospheric research.

Mountain snow is a critical water source, but its warming response is complex. This study developed a new method to examine this in arid Xinjiang mountains using long-term satellite data, revealing a three-level control system and that a strong snow-temperature link does not guarantee a healthy system; it also provides a framework for water availability prediction and climate adaptation.

We continuously measured ice crystal sizes along two ice cores from the Tibetan Plateau. We found that the pattern of crystal size variation with depth is similar to that in polar ice cores. Crystal sizes increase abruptly in refrozen ice layers, while they decrease in impurity-rich bands. Notably, in specific layers, crystal size is linked to δ¹⁸O, which means the crystal sizes in mountain glacier ice cores can retain temperature signals, helping us understand past climate change.