Open Burning and the Arctic: An Issue of Resilience By Gail Stevenson, Russia Program Manager Open burning in northern Eurasia is a significant source of black carbon (BC) to the Arctic lower atmosphere and snow surface. The Arctic Council estimates that it is the largest single source of BC impacting the regional Arctic climate. In […]

The Cryosphere Imperative: Why Paris 2015 Must Succeed ICCI in coming months will focus much of its resources on raising the level of ambition for the Paris 2015 climate change agreement, from the point of view of a “cryosphere imperative.” This blog defines that “imperative.”  Subsequent months will look at the different elements, such as […]

Why The President Should Say “No” to Keystone The following is taken from a letter sent to President Barack Obama by ICCI founder and Executive Director Pam Pearson, urging the President to deny approval to the Keystone pipeline: I founded and lead a group focused on climate change in cryosphere regions, such as the Himalayas […]

For the December IceBlog, below is the prepared statement from ICCI Director Pam Pearson to the environment and foreign ministers gathered at COP-19 in Warsaw on November 21 for the ”Climate and Clean Air Coalition’s” (CCAC) High Level Assembly. (The reference to the Phillipines connects to the decision by Phillipine lead negotiator Yeb Sano to […]

Message from the Cryosphere The On Thin Ice report, co-produced by ICCI and the World Bank, is a message of caution, and of hope. Caution because rapid changes in the earth’s regions of snow and ice – the “cryosphere” – daily increase the risk of changes to our global environment: changes not seen in the […]

An “Interpretation for the Rest of Us” of the Latest IPCC Report – Cryosphere Sections On September 27, Working Group 1 (WG1) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued its Summary for Policymakers after over a week of negotiations between scientists and governments on the final text in Stockholm. This is part of […]

The Cryosphere Ice Watch Every year about this time, my thoughts become distinctly maudlin.  For much of human history and in many cultures still today, the death watch was a staple of the end of human life:  family and friends gathering at the bedside for days and even weeks, sitting in witness and support with […]

Tragedy in the Himalayas A tragedy occurred last month in the mountainous regions of northern India, western Nepal and Tibet, when monsoon rains hit unexpectedly early and hard.  Rainfall from June 14-17 totaled 375% more than the normal monsoon benchmark at the event’s epicenter, resulting in flash floods and landslides along the Mandakini River, which […]

One Change Editorial note:  the below blog was written by Sasha Pearson, age 13 and the daughter of ICCI founder and director Pam Pearson. Sasha has often attended climate conferences and negotiations, but recent changes to UNFCCC rules prohibit participation by those under age 18 except under special circumstances so Sasha wrote this “outside the […]

When Slowing Climate Change Becomes a Human Right A new line was crossed in April, when the Arctic Athabaskan Council petitioned the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to declare that Canada is undermining the human rights of Athabaskan peoples – “First Nation” peoples whose communities stretch from northern Canada into Alaska — by poorly regulating […]

Losing – and Finding — Our Balance My daughter is a gymnast, and like many of her compatriots, her least favorite event, hands down, is the balance beam.  Gymnasts may have a wonderful meet, reach the beam, and then a tiny mistake for a split second and boom – a fall and loss of a […]

More on the 2012 Melt Season: the New Normal Although the record for sea ice extent was reached already on August 26 of this year (see August’s IceBlog), this year’s melt season continues to have surprises for scientists as the sun continues its march southward and more and more of the Arctic enters 24-hour darkness. […]

Arctic Sea Ice:  Why It Matters On August 26, satellite data analyzed by the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC), as well as similar estimates from Norway’s Polar Institute, made it official:  the 2007 record low for summer Arctic sea ice was officially broken, and with nearly an entire month of melting left […]

Cryosphere Math: The Rule of Twos Note: this is modified version of a statement given at the UNEP Governing Council meetings in Nairobi, Kenya ICCI works on behalf of the cryosphere – which means the parts of the earth that are covered by ice and snow.  The cryosphere mostly is used to mean the Arctic […]

Rio+20: Sustainable Development in the Cryosphere Rio de Janiero, June 16: Here in Rio, in the physical heat as well as the heat of last-minute negotiations, it is hard to imagine the areas of ice and snow that make up the “cryosphere.” Yet when it comes to the challenge of sustainable development, few communities face […]