Abstract

Sea ice and snow are crucial components of the cryosphere and the climate system. Both sea ice and spring snow in the Northern Hemisphere (NH) have been decreasing at an alarming rate in a changing climate. Changes in NH sea ice and snow have been linked with a variety of climate and weather extremes including cold spells, heatwaves, droughts and wildfires. Understanding of these linkages will benefit the predictions of climate and weather extremes. However, existing work on this has been largely fragmented and is subject to large uncertainties in physical pathways and methodologies. This has prevented further substantial progress in attributing climate and weather extremes to sea ice and snow change, and will potentially risk the loss of a critical window for effective climate change mitigation. In this talk, I will present a brief overview of our current research progress in attributing climate and weather extremes to sea ice and terrestrial snow in the NH. Moreover, I will highlight the limitations of current methodologies and challenges in the attributions. Finally, I will discuss some suggestions for future research to advance our understanding of cryospheric driving of extreme events.