Cryosphere response to light-absorbing particles under changing climate

Light-absorbing particles (LAPs) (such as black carbon (BC) and mineral dust (MD)) can substantially impact the cryosphere and accelerate melting, leading to notable radiative and climatic effects. In this Review, we summarize the global spatiotemporal distribution patterns of LAPs in the cryosphere; introduce the physical processes of LAPs impacting snow/ice and remote sensing retrieval techniques of LAPs content on multiple spatial scales; and synthesize the impacts of LAPs on the cryosphere and climate change. There are widespread distributions of LAPs in the global cryosphere, with a predominance in the High Mountain Asia (HMA). From the mid-20th century onwards, the impact of MD on the global cryosphere became more pronounced, while the influence of BC gradually declined. In the future, increased BC from enhanced boreal wildfires will likely offset the cryosphere benefits of reduced anthropogenic BC emissions. Inconsistencies in monitoring methods and limitations in accurately quantifying the microscopic and macroscopic mechanisms of LAPs-cryosphere interactions have led to large uncertainties in the investigations of LAPs in the cryosphere and assessments of the role of LAPs in climate change. We propose constructing a multimodal artificial intelligence big model focused on LAPs-cryosphere interactions to obtain high-precision LAPs information within the cryosphere. A high-resolution comprehensive forecasting system needs to be established that concludes the LAPs remote sensing monitoring, transport and deposition modeling, radiative transfer process simulating, and climate effects estimating, to improve the expression of the role of LAPs in global cryosphere melting and feedback on climate change.