Book excerpt: Ice and snow on Earth modulate and modify the climate, chemistry and fate of air and water pollutants. Climate change is drastically impacting Nature and extent of the cryosphere, with attendant feedbacks on atmospheric composition and climate. These changes are happening at a rate that outpaces the development of fundamental knowledge of processes that occur within/on the surfaces of ice and snow, confounding our ability to develop a predictive capability for future states of the Earth environment.This set, comprising 17 chapters, written by world experts on these topics, are thus intended to document the current state of understanding of the structure, physical properties, abundance, and chemical and microbiological processes that occur within/on ice and snow in all Earth environments in which it exists, and to express needs for improvement of that understanding. This, only comprehensive treatise/collection that covers environmentally relevant chemistry and related physical aspects of snow and ice in the Earth system, and the connections to climate change, will be accessible to those with introductory college-level understanding of chemistry and physics.