Cryosphere at a tipping point for irreversible loss and damage

Annual update on the state of world’s ice stores warns of drastically higher costs without immediate emissions reductions

Over 50 leading cryosphere scientists warn in their annual report on the status of the world’s ice stores released at COP29 in Baku, of vastly higher impacts and costs to the global economy given accelerating losses in the world’s snow and ice regions.

The State of the Cryosphere Report 2024, coordinated by the International Cryosphere Climate Initiative (ICCI) warns that current climate commitments, leading the world to well over 2°C of warming, would bring disastrous and irreversible consequences for billions of people from global ice loss.

Based on the most recent cryosphere science updates from 2024, the authors underscore that the costs of loss and damage if our current level of emissions continues – leading towards a rise of 3°C or more – will be even more extreme, with many regions experiencing sea-level rise or water resource loss well beyond adaptation limits in this century.  Mitigation also becomes more costly, due to feedbacks from thawing permafrost emissions and loss of sea ice.

For the first time also, the Report notes a growing scientific consensus that melting Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, among other factors, may be slowing important ocean currents at both poles, with potentially dire consequences for a much colder northern Europe, and greater sea-level rise along the U.S. East Coast.

Dr. Irene Quail
Senior Media Advisor
International Cryosphere Climate Initiative