We see far greater risk of massive irreversible sea level rise (SLR) at 2°C, on a scale of 12–20 meters or more in the long term. The climate record of the Earth over the pat few million years is quite clear:
Sea Level Rise from Ice Sheets
We see far greater risk of massive irreversible sea level rise (SLR) at 2°C, on a scale of 12–20 meters or more in the long term. The climate record of the Earth over the pat few million years is quite clear:
Sea Level Rise from Ice Sheets
Formed in 2009 immediately after COP-15 in Copenhagen, ICCI is a network of senior policy experts and researchers working with governments and organizations to create, shape and implement initiatives designed to preserve as much of the Earth’s cryosphere as possible. ICCI programs target the unique climate dynamics at work in the cryosphere, while at the same time lending increased urgency to global climate efforts aimed at CO2 and other greenhouse gases by communicating the unexpected rapidity and global implications of cryosphere warming.
ICCI’s directors and policy experts – the latter entirely volunteer – comprise its primary resource. As former management-level civil servants, ICCI directors fully understand the challenges facing even the most committed national and international leaders. Policy advice and support for governments and NGOs on a new yet important issue such as the cryosphere has never proven more essential. ICCI is quietly working to fill that gap, with the urgency the cryosphere deserves.
ICCI currently operates as two legal entities: ICCI, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization in the United States that operates as the global organization and is based in Burlington, Vermont; and ICCI-Europe, a charitable organization under Swedish regulation based in Stockholm, Sweden.
Abrupt thaw of permafrost causes large and sudden releases of carbon, with a greater percentage of fastwarming methane.
Gustaf Hugelius / Bolin Centre
TROPICAL GLACIERS
AND SNOW
Few glaciers near the Equator, such as in the northern Andes and in East Africa, can survive even today’s 1°C. Some of these glaciers were shrinking anyway after the last ice age; but global warming has sped up their disappearance by many centuries.
Glaciers and snow in the northern Andes provide a reliable seasonal source of water, and their loss especially will impact rural populations in Peru and Chile.
MID-LATITUDE GLACIERS
AND SNOW
Mid-latitude glaciers and snow in the Alps, southern Andes/Patagonia, Iceland, Scandinavia, New Zealand and North American Rockies can survive at 1.5°C, but these glaciers will disappear almost entirely at 2°C, and snow cover will decrease.
For these glaciers and mountain snowpack, that half a degree spells the difference between sufficient seasonal water supply, such as in the American West, Tarim and Indus river basins; and water scarcity.
HIMALAYAS &
CENTRAL ASIA
The essential watersheds of the Himalayas and Central Asia maintain at 1.5°C around half to about twothirds of their ice.
At 2°C, much more ice will be lost, with regional impacts on water supply and increasing political instability, especially as monsoon rains become far more unpredictable.
1°C
At today’s temperature of 1°C over pre-industrial, we have locked in about 1–3 m of sea-level rise over the next centuries from loss of mountain glaciers and a portion of the polar ice sheets, even if we could hold temperatures at 1°C.
1.5°C
Risks rise substantially at 1.5°, with the Earth showing a pattern of
6–9 m compared to today when it was this warm in the past; coming from additional loss of Greenland and most of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS).
2°C
2°C shows a much sharper rise: between 12–20 m as the new global sea level, locked in over millennia.
This is because both the WAIS and Greenland melt nearly completely at a sustained 2°C; with vulnerable portions of East Antarctica also posing a threat; and up to 25 m occurring between 2° and 3°C.
>2°C
Most seriously, periods of time well in excess of 2°C – especially if we reach 3°C, 4°C or more, which is our current emissions pathway – increase the risk, speed and potential inevitability of the above changes.
The rate of change can itself become a risk: at the end of the last Ice Age, sea levels rose by up to 4 cm per year, and 12–14 m in the space of a few centuries.
But there are two dimensions where we scientists do not call she shots. And that is really ability whether our political system can do this, and the social and cultural feasibility whether our societies are willing to change some of their behaviors that are currently resulting in very much pollution."
Dr. Joeri Rogelj
PARTNERS &
DECLARATION
EVENTS
IMPACTS OF CRYOSPHERE OVERSHOOT
PATHWAYS TO
1.5°C
Projected sea level rise in the Calcutta and Bangladesh region
Sea level tools and analysis by Climate Central
Find the interactive map at Surging Seas Seeing Choices by Climate Central
UN Secretary-General António Guterres (tbc)
Amb. Selwin Hart
Special Advisor to the UN
Secretary-General on Climate Action (tbc)
His Serene Highness Prince Albert II
of Monaco (tbc)
Christiana Figueres
Co-Founder, Global Optimism Ltd
Former Executive Secretary, UNFCCC (tbc)
H.E. Dan Jørgensen
Minister of Climate and Energy and Public Utilities (Denmark, tbc)
H.E. Svenja Schulze
Minister for Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (Germany, tbc)
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