State of the Cryosphere Report 2021

Without More Ambitious NDCs, Cryosphere Changes Risk Unstoppable – and Permanent — Climate Breakdown

This new Report, reviewed and supported by nearly 50 leading cryosphere scientists, over half of them IPCC authors; details how a combination of melting polar ice sheets, vanishing glaciers, and thawing permafrost will have rapid, irreversible, and disastrous effects on the Earth’s population.

The State of the Cryosphere Report will become an annual effort taking the pulse of the cryosphere, the name given to Earth’s snow and ice regions, ranging from ice sheets, glaciers and permafrost to sea ice and the polar oceans — which are acidifying far more rapidly than warmer waters. Download the first edition below.

Citation: ICCI, 2021. State of the Cryosphere 2021 – A Needed Decade of Urgent Action. International Cryosphere Climate Initiative (ICCI), Stockholm, Sweden. 52 pp.

Published: 26 October 2021

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Introduction: Christiana Figueres, former UNFCCC Executive Secretary

Reviewers/Authors including:
Guðfinna Aðalgeirsdóttir, AR6 Lead Author
Richard B. Alley, IPCC AR4 Lead Author
Jonathan Bamber, IPCC AR6 WG1, AR5 Expert Reviewer, AR4 WG1 Review Editor, Former President, European Geosciences Union
Julie Brigham-Grette, Former Chair, U.S. Polar Research Board
Robert DeConto, IPCC SROCC Lead Author
Andrea Dutton, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Regine Hock, IPCC AR4 Contributing Author, SROCC Coordinating Lead Author, AR6 Contributing Author
Georg Kaser, AR5 WG1 Lead Author
Ronald Kwok, IPCC AR5 Lead Author
Dirk Notz, IPCC AR6 WG1 Lead Author
Ben Marzeion, SROCC Lead Author, AR5 and AR6 WG1 Contributing Author
Ben Orlove, SROCC Lead Author
Joeri Rogelj, IPCC CLA AR5, SR1.5 and AR6, Imperial College London
Heidi Steltzer, Fort Lewis College and SROCC Lead Author
Michiel Schaeffer, IPCC AR5
Edward (Ted) Schuur, IPCC SROCC Lead Author
Drew Shindell, IPCC CLA SR1.5
Martin Sommerkorn, IPCC SROCC Coordinating Lead Author
Juliene Stroeve, IPCC SROCC Contributing Author
Merritt Turetsky, Director, Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research (INSTAAR), IPCC SROCC Contributing Author
Roderik van de Wal, IPCC SROCC Contributing Author
Philippus Wester, ICIMOD, AR6 Lead Author