8:30 Cryosphere Coordination Meeting
Daily coordination meetings and negotiations updates will be held every morning the Cryosphere Pavilion.
Contact: Stefan Ruchti (stefan@iccinet.org) or Pam Pearson (pam@iccinet.org)

10:00 Emma Robertson | COP29 Early Career Scientist Program
Emma is currently a PhD student in physical oceanography. She uses water isotopes from ice core records to study atmospheric rivers and ice sheet-climate interactions in West Antarctica. She also studies the causes of salinity changes in the Southern Ocean and traces the impact of melting ice masses on the ocean’s salinity. These projects relate to global ocean circulation, and reflect the cascading impacts on nutrient distribution, upwelling, and marine ecosystems and fisheries.
Alfred Wegener Institute, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, International Cryosphere and Climate Initiative

10:45 Shaakir Dar | COP29 Early Career Scientist Program
Shaakir’s research focuses on snow mass loss. Past work on precipitation sources and atmospheric hydrology, particularly over Southern Ocean. Monitoring moisture to see where it comes from to bring precipitation into the HKH, he found that the Arabian Sea as well as the Caspian (to a lesser extent) are major moisture suppliers. Decreasing snow poses threat to water supplies and changes water availability in different seasons. This year, the HKH endured a snow drought this spring and continued rapid glacier loss.
University of Oulu, International Cryosphere and Climate Initiative

11:30 Christina Draeger | COP29 Early Career Scientist Program
Glacier mass loss extends far beyond contributing to sea-level rise, with profound impacts on freshwater resources, hydropower, agriculture, and tourism, affecting millions of people worldwide. In this presentation, Christina will explore the local impacts of glacier changes on communities in Western Canada and highlight the critical role of physics-based glacier melt models in understanding and projecting regional glacier changes in a warming climate.
University of British Columbia, International Cryosphere and Climate Initiative

12:15 Shiva Muruganandham | COP29 Early Career Scientist Program
Antarctic ice loss brings non-linear impacts on regional and global scales, with more frequent flooding events hitting critical infrastructure, energy supplies, and transportation hubs. Shiva’s research focuses on the melting taking place underneath ice shelves, and how this translates into sea-level rises over coming centuries. He also work on regional coastal flooding maps along the East Coast of the US, combining coarse low-resolution global models with high-resolution 5-10 year current models and then expanding them to now show multiple decades for areas of US coastlines.
Georgia Institute of Technology, International Cryosphere and Climate Initiative

13:00 Media Event: An S.O.S. From the Poles to World Leaders at COP29
More than a dozen organizations signed an open letter to leaders at COP29, emphasizing that exceeding the 1.5°C threshold risks triggering irreversible and uncontrollable shifts in the Earth’s climate system, with catastrophic consequences for both current and future generations. Today, the world already endures unprecedented melting of ice sheets, glaciers, sea ice, and thawing of permafrost. These changes are not isolated; they cascade into widespread and severe impacts on climate stability, ecosystems, livelihoods, economies, and the safety of societies worldwide.

16:00 Solar Cooking: A Pathway to Emissions Prevention and Climate Crisis Mitigation
Solar Cookers International improves human health, economic well-being, women’s empowerment, and the environment by promoting climate-friendly solar cooking to address the challenge of 2.1 billion people cooking with polluting fuels. Over 4 million solar cookers have been identified around the globe. Estimates indicate they are avoiding 30+ million metric tons of CO2 emissions over their lifetime. A panel will showcase this solution and how governments can include clean cooking in their NDCs.
Solar Cookers International

18:00 Video and Discussion: Understanding the History of the Greenland Ice Sheet
The center of Greenland – currently buried under a 3-kilometer-thick sheet of ice – supported plant life within the past million years, indicating that it was completely ice-free even when CO2 concentrations were far lower than today’s levels. Researchers examined ancient remains of soil from the base of an ice core drilled at Summit Station. They found unmistakable remains of a tundra plant ecosystem that could only have formed in the absence of ice, and when the ice is gone at the summit, at least 90% of Greenland’s ice must have melted. Dr. Paul Bierman will summarize this new paper and share about his experience translating hard science into something for a more general public.
University of Vermont, International Cryosphere and Climate Initiative