The Cryosphere 

EGUsphere, the innovative open-access repository created by the European Geosciences Union and Copernicus Publications, is growing. For the first time, authors will be able to upload preprints to the online resource, taking advantage of EGU’s pioneering public peer-review process, whilst preparing their papers for future release.

At the end of the year, we would like to express our deep gratitude for our collaboration with all editors, referees, and authors in 2021. Please take a look at our Christmas card. Since our virtual office is closed from 23 Dec to 2 Jan and a significant number of editors and referees pause their work over the Christmas days, we extended all journal review deadlines: deadlines expiring shortly before or over Christmas have been extended to the week after and deadlines expiring after Christmas or over New Year have been extended to after New Year’s Day. Season's greetings and a happy New Year. Please stay healthy.

Snow depth data are essential to monitor the impacts of climate change on sea ice volume variations and their impacts on the climate system. For that purpose, the authors present and assess the altimetric snow depth product, computed in both hemispheres from CryoSat-2 and SARAL satellite data.