Dear Friends of the Cryosphere Pavilion and Cryosphere Capsule Readers- As many of you no doubt saw on media, a fire interrupted COP30 on Thursday afternoon, Nov. 20, including the opening remarks of Iceland Minister for the Environment, Energy and Climate Jóhann Páll Jóhannsson at the Cryosphere Pavilion, in a side event focused on latest […]
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 18 August 2025) A 6-week period of record-high air temperatures during summer 2024 left a serious dent on Svalbard’s glaciers, resulting in 1% of this region’s total ice volume lost. This rapid melt from Svalbard actually exceeded that of the Greenland Ice Sheet – which is 50 times […]
Nature Communications, 21 July 2025 Winter air temperatures exceeded 0°C for 14 days during February 2025 in Ny-Ålesund, Svalbard, setting a new record and triggering widespread snow and ice loss. When winter warming exceeds 0°C, it marks more than just a warm anomaly – it signals a fundamental shift in Arctic winter dynamics with long-term […]
Svalbard is warming six to seven times faster than the global average and strongly responds to every increment of temperature rise. Two early career scientists who assisted at the COP298 Cryosphere Pavilion led a side event on their research in Ny-Ålesund and offered a closer look at this changing Arctic landscape. Dr. Ugo Nanni from […]
Dear Friends of the Cryosphere Pavilion and Cryosphere Capsule Readers, We are happy to announce that COP30 Cryosphere Pavilion side event application process is now open! We plan to carry forward the cryosphere’s message towards urgent ambition with another strong array of policy-relevant side events at COP30 in Belém this fall. Side event applications are […]
Dear Friends of the Cryosphere Pavilion and Cryosphere Capsule Readers! The COP30 Cryosphere Pavilion side event application portal will open on August 1! In this first COP to take place in Amazonía — like Cryosphere, threatened by critical thresholds or “tipping points” — we plan to again carry forward the cryosphere’s message towards urgent ambition […]
Nature Geoscience, 11 July 2025 New radar measurements identify remarkably flat surfaces and deep troughs in the ground buried beneath a 3,500 km stretch of the East Antarctic coastline, showing how this topography influences the speed of present-day glaciers. This previously unmapped landscape formed over 80 million years ago when rivers carved across the continent, […]
Communications Earth & Environment, 15 July 2025 North American glaciers have rapidly retreated over the last decade, with increasing black carbon accumulation driving 31% of glacier melting in western North America and 41% in the Canadian Arctic. The study measured the influence of snow and ice darkening on 25 of the largest and most heavily […]
Nature Climate Change, 4 July 2025 This landmark study offers the first high-resolution, continent-wide map of surface meltwater across Antarctica, finding that East Antarctica contains multiple hotspots where rapid ponding and melting has occurred over the past two decades. These hotspots with more meltwater ponds are located along the entire edge of the East Antarctic […]
Nature Climate Change, 4 July 2025 Daily observations of surface melt over the past three decades show that overall melting of Greenland’s surface has significantly increased each year, and East Antarctica has also registered significant surface melting. These spikes in surface melt are driven by a wide range of factors, worsened by rising global temperatures. […]
Nature Geoscience, 1 July 2025 Researchers tracking sea ice, ocean swell and ice shelf conditions over multiple years in two sectors of Antarctica have identified key triggers and common patterns of large-scale Antarctic ice shelf calving events. Floating slurries of sea ice protect the margins of ice shelves from incoming ocean waves, which can strike […]
Dr. Robbie Mallett from the University of Tromsø shared a synopsis of the current state of Arctic sea ice, reflected on recent trends and record-setting lows, and explained how today’s policies shape the future Arctic sea ice. Latest observations highlight the increasing severity of Arctic climate change, with significant implications not only for communities and […]
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 30 June 2025 Satellite observations have revealed a sharp increase in the salinity of ocean surface waters surrounding Antarctica since 2015, with strong implications for sea ice having passed a threshold of continued decline; a surprising finding that models had not predicted. For decades, the surface of the […]
Communications Earth and Environment, 4 June 2025 Black carbon emissions have significantly reduced frozen water storage across the Tibetan Plateau, driving one-third of ice loss there from 2007 to 2016, shrinking a crucial freshwater source for millions. Black carbon air pollution directly increases ice loss by darkening the surface of snow and ice when these […]
Communications Earth and Environment, 9 June 2025 This research suggests that warming coastal waters will significantly increase the occurrence of harmful algal blooms in high-latitude regions. The study projects that warmer ocean temperatures will lead to higher levels of these toxic blooms during spring and autumn, posing a heightened risk to seafood safety and wildlife. […]