Happy Cryosphere New Year!

Thank You for 2024!

It was wonderful seeing many of you at COP29 in Baku, including at the COP29 Cryosphere Pavilion. The Cryosphere Pavilion this year hosted more than seventy side events over the course of two weeks. We want to extend a warm thank you to everyone – from polar and mountain researchers, to Indigenous peoples, youth, climate negotiators, ministers, policy experts and more – who participated in these side events to raise the Cryosphere message. The science shone through, illuminating the needed urgency of action towards fossil fuel emissions reductions.

Most important: remaining below the Paris limit of 1.5°C remains very much within reach, and relies on the decisions of today’s policy makers together with the general public to put words into action.

Looking Ahead to 2025!

The coming year will see a number of new challenges and opportunities, including the first-ever International Year of Glaciers’ Preservation (2025), and the beginning of the Decade of Action for Cryospheric Sciences (2025-2034), both declared by the United Nations General Assembly. ICCI and these weekly Cryosphere Capsules will continue our mission to highlight key, policy-relevant scientific developments in these important regions of the planet to the entire climate system.

Our regular Cryosphere Capsules will resume on January 6. If you would like to read any of the Capsules from the past year, please visit the ICCI website, select “Recent Science” and click on Cryosphere Capsules.

Have a wonderful New Year and holiday season, and we look forward to connecting with you in 2025!

The ICCI Cryosphere Capsules Team