This is the first textbook to consider all aspects of the cryosphere system in the context of global environmental change driven by human activity and climate. * Considers all six aspects of the cryosphere - ice sheets, glacier ice, permafrost, river and lake ice, sea ice and snow - in the context of global environmental change driven by human activity and climate. * Describes a new concept of cryosphere transience and landscape transition which links climate, hydrology, ecology and geomorphology. * Looks at the evidence, process, and patterns of cryosphere change, on local and global scales. * Provides a wealth of data to inform the current global environmental change debate.