The International Symposium on Cryospheric Indicators of Global Climate Change was held in Cambridge, UK, from Monday 21 to Friday 25 August 2006. The Symposium was organized by the International Glaciological Society and co-sponsored by the British Antarctic Survey, the Scott Polar Research Institute, The Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research, the IUGG Commission on Cryospheric Sciences and the World Climate Research Program Climate and Cryosphere (CliC) Project.
The Symposium built on the foundation laid by the first CliC International Science Conference held in Beijing in April 2005, and aimed to promote discussion of changes in all components of the global cryosphere, their interdependence and causes, our current ability to model those changes, and what they tell us about changes in the global climate. It attracted 225 participants. Oral (108) and poster (106) presentations focused on seven main topics:
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1. observed historical changes in the cryosphere
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2. processes that lead to changes in the cryosphere and how these make interpretation difficult
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3. actual records of climate in cryospheric regions and their relation to changes in the cryosphere, including statistical/model interpretation
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4. extension of climate records back in time, using observations of cryospheric changes
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5. synthesis of records by geographical region, and ultimately globally
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6. linkage of historical cryospheric records to palaeo-records of climate, and
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7. modelling of all of the above. How well do models capture the observed changes?
A large editorial board was required because of the unprecedented number of abstracts submitted for the symposium. The local organizing committee was chaired by Tom Lachlan-Cope and consisted of Magnús Már Magnússon, Chad Dick, Eric Wolff, Glenda Harden, Ian Willis, Jill Alexander, Liz Crilley and Hilmar Gudmundsson.
Thanks are due to all of these individuals, and to the International Glaciological Society, its Secretary General Magnús Már Magnússon and his Cambridge Staff, the local organizing committee, all the people who helped during the Symposium, the Associate Editors and reviewers, and to all of the participants for making the Symposium a success.
