All people on Earth depend on this frozen part of our world
The cryosphere is the frozen part of the world – its glaciers and ice sheets, snow, permafrost, sea ice, lake ice and river ice.
The cryosphere has been a lifeline for communities across the globe. It supplies fresh water to millions of people, stabilizes the global climate, and protects coastal settlements from sea level rise by keeping ice in its frozen state.
All people on Earth depend on the cryosphere – directly or indirectly. Snow, glaciers, ice sheets, and permafrost are significant storages and sources of freshwater, sustaining ecosystems and supporting livelihoods across the globe.
70% of Earth’s fresh water exists as glaciers and ice sheets.
10% of Earth’s land area is covered by glaciers or ice sheets.
The rate of sea level rise in the past decade (2014-2023) has more than doubled since the first decade of satellite measurements (1993-2002).
30 million tonnes of ice lost by the Greenland ice sheet on average every hour throughout the year.
The Greenland ice sheet contains potentially 7.4 meters of sea level rise.
2 billion people depend upon meltwater from glaciers as a seasonal source of water.
The cryosphere is under significant threat from various climate change-driven factors – with severe implications for billions of people. The continued increase of global anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases and short-lived climate forcers drive climate change and cause the cryosphere to change rapidly.
Communities in coastal regions, small islands, polar areas and high mountain zones are especially vulnerable as these changes trigger significant impacts, including sea level rise, flooding, coastal erosion, freshwater contamination and more extreme weather events.
The Arctic is warming three times faster than the global average for the past 30 years – with harmful effects on the environment, biodiversity, society and infrastructure, as well as on subsistence-based livelihoods of many Arctic communities.
The accelerated warming causes the cryosphere across the circumpolar North to change rapidly: Snow cover and sea ice thickness and extent are decreasing, glaciers and the Greenland Ice Sheet are losing ice mass and permafrost is thawing. These fundamental changes affect terrestrial, coastal and marine ecosystems throughout the Arctic and beyond.
To name some examples: Unique ecosystems, such as those associated with multi-year sea ice or millennia-old ice shelves, are at risk and some are vanishing. Thawing permafrost is causing severe damage to buildings and infrastructure across the Arctic. And, sea-level rise, from melting glaciers and ice sheets, is flooding low-lying coastal areas and causing erosion, putting millions of people in coastal cities and island communities at risk. To date, Greenland is among the largest global sources of sea level rise and currently loses around 270 gigatons of its ice mass per year.
Arctic Council has been playing a leading role on the crosscutting issue of cryosphere changes in the Arctic for over two decades. Numerous official declarations, texts, and documents emphasize the critical role of the global cryosphere in stabilizing the climate, its sensitivity to greenhouse gas emissions and short-lived climate pollutants, and the urgent need to reduce both to protect the Arctic cryosphere and preserve the stability of our global climate.
In 2024, the Arctic Council is celebrating the 20-year anniversary of the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment, published by two of the Arctic Council Working Groups, the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme (AMAP) and the Conservation of Arctic Flora and Fauna (CAFF), as well as the International Arctic Science Committee in 2004. Over 300 scientists, experts, and Indigenous Peoples representatives contributed to this first comprehensive account of climate change in the Arctic. The result is one of the world’s first in-depth regional accounts of climate change.