The world’s frozen regions are warming at more than twice the global average, reshaping landscapes that play an outsized role in regulating climate and water systems far beyond the poles and high mountains. Glaciers, snowpacks and permafrost act as natural reservoirs, releasing water gradually across seasons. As these systems destabilise, the consequences ripple downstream affecting water security, ecosystems, infrastructure and communities from the Himalayas to the Arctic.
CryoSCOPE is an EU-funded Horizon Europe research project designed to better understand these changes by examining the physical and chemical processes linking the cryosphere, atmosphere and hydrosphere. Rather than studying ice, snow or water in isolation, the project takes an integrated approach, combining advanced field observations, remote sensing, artificial intelligence and state-of-the-art modelling to capture how these systems interact — and how climate change is altering their balance.
The project currently operates across 10 field sites in six of the world’s most climate-vulnerable frozen regions: mainland Norway, Svalbard, Finnish Lapland, Iceland, the Swiss Alps and the Indian Himalayas. These sites are often remote and difficult to access, shaped by extreme weather and rapidly changing environmental conditions. Yet it is precisely this complexity that makes them essential laboratories for understanding futurce climate and water dynamics.
