The World Meteorological Organization will elevate the cryosphere to one of its top priorities, given the increasing impacts of diminishing sea ice, melting glaciers, ice sheets, permafrost and snow on sea level rise, water-related hazards and water security, economies and ecosystems.
The World Meteorological Congress, WMO’s top decision-making body, endorsed a new resolution calling for more coordinated observations and predictions, data exchange, research and services. It proposes to ramp up activities, with a proposed increased in funding from the regular budget and extrabudgetary funding.
Delegates from around the world voiced concern that what happens in Polar and high mountain areas affects the whole globe, in particular small island states and densely populated coastal zones.
“The cryosphere issue is a hot topic not just for the Arctic and Antarctic, but it is a global issue,” said WMO Secretary-General Prof. Petteri Taalas.
Sue Barrell (Australia) and Diane Campbell (Canada) who are co-chairs of the WMO’s, Executive Council’s Panel on Polar and High Mountains Observations, Research, and Services, outlined the challenges and the need for urgent action.
The resolution calls for greater investment and mobilization of activities well beyond the WMO community. It sets out the high-level priorities and proposed actions, which are linked to WMO’s Long-Term Goals:
Sea level rise, ice and glaciers are among the climate indicators monitored by WMO and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The WMO State of the Global Climate 2022 report highlighted the rapid change.
Reference glaciers (for which we have long-term observations) experienced an average thickness change of over −1.3 metres between October 2021 and October 2022. This loss is much larger than the average of the last decade. The cumulative thickness loss since 1970 amounts to almost 30 m.
The European Alps smashed records for glacier melt due to a combination of little winter snow, an intrusion of Saharan dust in March 2022 and heatwaves between May and early September. In Switzerland, 6% of the glacier ice volume was lost between 2021 and 2022 – and one third between 2001 and 2022.
The Greenland Ice Sheet ended with a negative total mass balance for the 26th year in a row.
Sea ice in Antarctica dropped to 1.92 million km2 on February 25, 2022, the lowest level on record and almost 1 million km2 below the long-term (1991-2020) mean.
Arctic sea ice in September at the end of the summer melt tied for the 11th lowest monthly minimum ice extent in the satellite record.
Global mean sea level reaching a new record high for the satellite altimeter record (1993-2022). The rate of global mean sea level rise has doubled between the first decade of the satellite record (1993-2002, 2.27 mm∙yr-) and the last (2013-2022, 4.62 mm∙yr).