4. Factors of Cryosol Formation

Climate is the most important factor influencing development of cryosols. There is a wide variety of climates for cryosols that ranges from maritime to continental. The mean annual air temperature ranges from +1 °C to −20 °C or colder; the mean annual precipitation ranges from <10 mm in interior Antarctica to more than 2,000 mm in high-mountain environments. High winds are common in many areas with cryosols. There is a variety of vegetation in the cold regions, but they are largely treeless except in the boreal forest or taiga. Birds transfer large amounts of nutrients from the coast to land in areas fringing the Arctic and Southern Oceans. Patterned ground is a common landform component in areas with cryosols. These features may be sorted in circles, nets and stripes, or they may be unsorted in the form of ice-wedge polygons, frost boils, and earth hummocks. The most common parent materials are eolian (loess and sand dunes), alluvium, lacustrine, peat, colluvium, gelifluction materials, and beach sediments. These materials may be of recent age or may extend back as far as the Miocene.