A Message from a Frozen World

The Earth’s changing cryosphere is thus sending a warning signal; a planet with less snow, ice and permafrost is a very different planet, one unknown to humankind. These were the words of the Minister of the Environment for Chile, Honorable Maisa Rojas Corradi, as she took the stage during an official side event focused on the cryosphere hosted by the Norwegian Chairship of the Arctic Council during the 29th Conference of the Parties (COP29) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Baku, Azerbaijan.

Representatives from Chile, Pakistan, Germany, Bhutan, and Norway, the Inuit Circumpolar Council and the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development, as well as polar scientists shared the stage to bring a message from the frozen world to global leaders. In their words, this is how the Arctic, the Antarctic and the Hindu Kush Himalayan region are changing and why global action is needed.

The Arctic

“Cryosphere for us Inuit translates to rights. Cryosphere for us translates to our infrastructure. The fact that our land is frozen makes our land our infrastructure. The fact that our sea ice is there in the winter, makes our sea and the ice on it our infrastructure. So when it melts, it is literally the ground underneath us that is melting. This has repercussions to our lives, livelihoods and human rights,” emphasized Sara Olsvig, Chair of the Inuit Circumpolar Council (ICC).

Since the 1980s, the loss of the Arctic cryosphere has been dramatically accelerating. At its lowest annual extent, the Arctic Sea ice cover has decreased by 58 percent since 19792. If this trend continues, the Arctic Ocean could be considered ice-free in summer as early as by the 2040s3. Olsvig shared a story from her homeland, Kalaallit Nunaat (Greenland), where a young man faces more than the loss of a hunting ground when the ice cover gets too fragile to traverse upon. “The fact that the sea ice doesn’t settle anymore and it’s not safe to travel on also means the loss of knowledge because his grandfather cannot teach him the knowledge of going hunting from the sea ice. It also means the loss of his livelihood for half a year. He has to leave and live in a different town where he can sustain himself and his family from fishing,” she told.

All regions of the Arctic are now experiencing net loss of land ice. The Greenland Ice Sheet has lost 5000 billion metric tons of its ice since the beginning of the century (or about 30 million tons of ice every hour at the current rate) making it one of the largest regional contributors to sea level rise. In addition to contributing to coastal erosion and undermining Arctic Indigenous communities’ coastal infrastructure, thawing permafrost releases greenhouse gases as microorganisms awaken in the warming soils and feast on one of the largest, millennia-old carbon storages in the world.

Glaciologist Heïdi Sevestre from the Secretariat of the Arctic Council’s Working Group Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme (AMAP) put the consequences into perspective by comparing the potential greenhouse gas emissions from permafrost to those of countries. “If we reach 1.6°C of temperature increase, permafrost will emit as much greenhouse gases as the country of India by the end of the century.” At two degrees, the emissions compare to the EU and at three degrees they would equal the United States’ emissions. “Just to make myself very clear here, it would effectively be as if we were adding another India, another EU, another U.S. to our planet.”

The loss of Arctic ice not only has disastrous repercussions on the lives, livelihoods and rights of Arctic Indigenous Peoples, but it’s also a vicious, amplifying cycle. The warmer it gets, the more ice melts and thaws, causing more greenhouse gases to be released and more solar energy to be absorbed by the now darker, ice-free land and sea surfaces. It is therefore not alarmist when Dr. Sevestre says, “If we lose the Arctic ice, not only will we catalyze the warming of the Arctic, but we will also threaten the stability of the entire climate system”.

The Antarctic

The Antarctic ice sheet is the largest freshwater reservoir in the world, it holds 90 percent of the global freshwater and at its thickest, it measures 5 kilometers. If all this ice were to melt, the potential global sea level rise would amount to 58 meters. While this is a hypothetical scenario, the fact that the sea level now is rising twice as fast as it did 30 years ago, is not. And what Antarctic scientists are particularly concerned about is the fate of Antarctic ice shelves.

Ice shelves are floating tongues of ice extending from glaciers that are grounded on land. They act as a cork: while in place, the ice shelves hold back the gigantic masses from the Antarctic ice sheet. But when warming waters melt away the floating ice and the shelves begin to retreat further back and sometimes collapse, it’s as if someone releases a cork: there’s nothing to stop the land ice from flowing into the sea. In short, “You end up with irreversible sea level rise that will last for centuries,” explained James Kirkham, Chief Science Adviser at the International Climate and Cryosphere Initiative.

While some amount of irreversible sea level rise is now locked in because of actions we’ve already taken, exactly how much sea level rise we will get and how fast it will be is still in our hands. “With the 1.5°C compatible pathways, we can limit sea level rise to half a meter by 2100 and to one to three meters by 2300,” said Dr. Kirkham. Yet, this is not the trajectory we are on. Our current emissions have us headed towards one meter sea level increase by 2100 and up to six or seven meters by 2300. Scenarios humanity would likely not be able to adapt to.

In many parts of the world, just 10 centimeters of sea level rise will make coastal flooding occur 10 times more frequently. Adaptation measures protecting shores and low-lying land under these scenarios are “a waste of money,” as Dr. Kirkham said. “We are talking about the irreversible damage caused by the inundation of countries.” The Bahamas could be under water within the next 50 years if current emissions continue. This “if” is the lifebuoy.

“I'm going to leave you with the most important message that we can still decide how much sea level rise we will get and how fast, but these decisions are being made by policies that you are setting now.”

Hindu Kush Himalaya

The high mountain areas of the Hindu Kush Himalaya hold more snow and ice than anywhere else outside the polar regions. The tallest mountain range in the world houses some 54,000 glaciers. Around 240 million people call the mountain range their home, but another 1.6 billion people live downstream, in the valleys and river basins, Pema Gymatsho, Director of the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), reminded the audience. These rivers, including the Ganges, Brahmaputra, Mekong and Yangtze, provide drinking water, irrigation, energy and sanitation.

Yet today, most of the glaciers are retreating and the hydrological cycle becomes more unpredictable. This can have devastating effects, including catastrophic floods, landslides and droughts. Dr. Gymatsho shared the example of Sikkim, India, where heavy rains caused a glacial lake to breach its banks in October 2023, triggering an outburst flood, which wiped away the Teesta III Dam in a matter of minutes. It wasn’t a singular incident. The Honorable Ahmen Atteeq Anwar, Parliamentary Secretary for the Ministry of Climate Change in Pakistan, shared how 40 percent of Pakistan was under water in 2022 due to a glacial flash flood. The flood displaced millions of people and destroyed large amounts of food production.

In this cascading domino effect of environmental, social and humanitarian disasters, there’s a need for understanding climate impacts on affected communities. Khedrup Dorji from Bhutan, Youth Ambassador for ICIMOD, highlighted the importance of transboundary regional and global cooperation, and the need for systemic and integrated approaches to addressing climate challenges. “The cryosphere must be given due consideration in the global processes and act as a barometer for our planet's health to ensure climate and social justice in the world,” he urged.

Calls for action

The message is clear: changes to a frozen world impact every living being on the Earth. Thus, safeguarding it is a global responsibility, as Norway’s Prime Minister, Jonas Gahr Støre, stated in his opening video address.

So, how does one protect the cryosphere? By keeping the global temperature below 1.5°C, said Dr. Sevestre. “It means that we will need to reduce our emissions by at least 42 percent by 2030. But to be honest, every ton of CO2 we can avoid matters, every tenth of a degree truly matters,” she urged the audience.

Cooperation to keep the frozen world intact requires the co-production of knowledge and bringing together western scientific knowledge and Indigenous Knowledge. Sara Olsvig stated, “If the world only bases its decisions on western scientific knowledge, it fails to holistically include all knowledge systems in our work to mitigate and adapt to climate change.” It also requires sharing resources, such as installing early warning systems which can save thousands of lives, as Honorable Atteeq Anwar emphasized.

While COP29 at large might not have brought the global push necessary, it gathered experts, knowledge holders and policy makers willing to pursue change and as Khedrup Dorji observed: “Although Norway, partners here, and the Himalayan region are apart by distance, it’s our shared commitment, cooperation and sacrifices in protecting our frozen heritage that binds us together more closely and intimately.” What it takes, regardless of your country’s size, the Bhutanese youth stated, is that you have the right mindset and act on it.