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Forest, grassland, tundra, bare lands and wetlands, plus land covered by ice and land covered by water. These categories describe the physical material covering the Earth's surface, whether natural or human-modified.

Land cover is the physical material on the Earth's surface (e.g. forest, ice, grassland, water). Land use is the human purpose or function applied to land (e.g. agriculture, housing, mining, recreation). Land use is a human concept; land cover can be natural or human-modified.

In three broad belts: the tropical rainforests near the Equator (Amazon, Congo Basin, Southeast Asia), the temperate forests of the mid-latitudes, and the vast boreal/taiga forests across high-latitude Canada, Scandinavia and Russia.

Tundra lies in the high latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere (northern Canada, Alaska, Siberia, Greenland's fringe) and on high alpine areas. It is treeless, has permafrost, low-growing vegetation (mosses, lichens, shrubs) and a short growing season.

The Last Glacial Maximum (~20,000 years ago), when ice sheets were at their greatest extent, and the Holocene Climatic Optimum (~8,000 years ago), a warmer period after the ice had largely retreated. Comparing them shows natural land-cover change over time.

A glacier is a large, slow-moving mass of ice formed from compacted, recrystallised snow that flows under gravity. An ice sheet is a continental-scale glacier covering more than 50,000 km2; the two ice sheets today cover Antarctica and Greenland.

Forests have multiple vegetation layers (canopy, understorey, forest floor) and high biodiversity; they cycle large volumes of water and carbon, intercepting rainfall and storing carbon in biomass and soil. They also create their own microclimates.

Melting glaciers and ice sheets, and deforestation. Each is studied for its global distribution and for the role of natural processes and human activity in causing it.

Natural processes (orbital/Milankovitch cycles, solar variation, volcanic activity) drive long-term climate change. Human activity accelerates melting by emitting greenhouse gases (CO2, methane) that enhance the greenhouse effect, warming the atmosphere and oceans far faster than natural rates alone.

Ice and snow are highly reflective (high albedo). As ice melts, darker ocean or land is exposed, which absorbs more solar radiation, warms further and melts more ice. This positive feedback loop accelerates melting once it begins.

Clearing for agriculture (cropland and cattle grazing), commercial logging for timber, and expansion of settlements, mining and infrastructure (roads, dams). Subsistence farming and fuelwood collection also contribute, especially in lower-income countries.

In the tropics: the Amazon Basin (Brazil), the Congo Basin in Central Africa, and Southeast Asia (Indonesia, Malaysia). These tropical rainforest regions have the highest rates of forest loss.

Remote sensing is collecting information about the Earth's surface from a distance, usually using satellites or aircraft sensors. It is used to track deforestation rates over time by comparing satellite images, or to measure glacier extent and ice-sheet mass loss.

Spatial association is the degree to which two or more phenomena are similar in their spatial distribution — i.e. whether they occur in the same places. A strong spatial association suggests the features may be interconnected or causally linked.

Loss of ice mass raises sea levels and removes meltwater stored in glaciers, disrupting downstream river flow and water supply; it can also cause glacial-lake outburst floods, habitat loss and changes to local ecosystems.

Social: communities reliant on glacial meltwater face water insecurity, and low-lying coastal populations face displacement from rising seas. Economic: loss of hydropower, tourism and agriculture dependent on meltwater, plus costs of coastal defence and relocation.

Local/national: building sea walls, managing water storage, or relocating communities. Global: international climate agreements such as the Paris Agreement (2015), which commits countries to limiting warming to well below 2 C to slow ice loss.

Environmental: biodiversity loss and increased CO2 emissions/soil erosion. Economic: short-term income from timber and farmland but long-term loss of forest resources and ecosystem services. Social: displacement of Indigenous and forest-dependent communities and loss of livelihoods.

Local/national: reforestation programs, protected areas/national parks, and law enforcement against illegal logging. Global: the UN REDD+ scheme, which pays developing countries to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation.

REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation) is a UN-backed global framework that provides financial incentives to developing countries to conserve and sustainably manage forests, treating standing forests as carbon stores worth protecting.