Welcome! Yo Koso!!

It is our pleasure to invite you to the IGS symposium
Snow, Ice and Humanity in a Changing Climate in Sapporo, Japan.

Avenue lined with poplar trees in Hokkaido University

Snow and ice in the natural environment are facing drastic changes under the influence of rapidly changing global and regional climates. Since snow and ice play crucial roles in cold regions, such changes have substantial impacts on human societies and activities. For example, the amount of snowfall and the duration of seasonal snow cover have been affected in many places, with consequences for the water resources and avalanche risks. Thawing permafrost causes destruction of infrastructure, and formation of glacier-dammed lakes poses potential hazards in mountainous regions. On the other hand, reduction of the summer sea ice extent in the Arctic creates new possibilities to use open water as a sea route for commercial vessels.

This symposium focuses on recent changes in the cryospheric components (snow, glaciers, ice sheets, permafrost, sea ice, lake ice, river ice) with respect to their influences on humanity. We invite contributions related to this subject in a broad sense, including ground based observations, remote sensing, laboratory experiments, numerical modelling, data compilations and analyses, risk management and social impact assessment. Topics are not restricted to present-day issues, but also open for paleo-environmental records as they are important for understanding the present and predicting the future. The conference will bring together researchers engaged in different fields of cryospheric science in order to discuss interactions of snow and ice with humanity in the past, present and future.