Cryosphere Science

The discipline of studying ice and frozen water systems on Earth. Includes glaciology, the study of glaciers, ice sheets, ice caps and the processes that form, move and melt them. Belongs here: any discipline whose primary subject is ice or permanently or seasonally frozen ground. Does not belong here: hydrology and its water-science siblings, whose subject is liquid water rather than ice, even where the two systems are directly connected through melt (Water Science). This class holds one live entity today; further cryosphere subdisciplines such as permafrost science have a real home waiting here as later mint waves add them.