WMO made an urgent call to action on the melting cryosphere

WMO warned on Tuesday that glaciers and ice caps are melting in Greenland and Antarctica account for some 50 percent of the sea level risewhich is fast, too bad effects on small island developing states (SIDS) and coastal areas.

Glacier melts

The average thickness of the world’s glaciers has plummeted by almost 30 meters since 1970.

“The cryosphere issue is a hot topic not only for the Arctic and Antarcticbut it is a global issue,” said WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas.

Irreversible changes in the global cryosphere will be affected well over a billion people who rely on water from snow and glacier melt, WMO said.

‘Sky giant’ of carbon emissions

The agency also called melting Arctic permafrost a “solar giant” of greenhouse gases, as it stored twice as much carbon as it is in the air today.

The WMO says it has made this burning issue one of its top priorities and calls for better forecasts and increased research, data exchange and investment.

Sea level, ice and glaciers are among the climate indicators of the WMO and tIntergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The WMO The State of the World Climate Report 2022 shows a staggering scale of change.

So-called “reference glaciers” which the WMO is monitoring long-term, experience total thickness change of over -1.3 meters between October 2021 and October 2022. This loss is much greater than the average of the last decade, the agency said.

Alpine record

The European Alps broke records for snowfall, worsened by a winter of little snow: in Switzerland, six percent of the amount of snow disappeared between 2021 and 2022 – and a third between 2001 and 2022.

The Greenland Ice Sheet ends with a total weighted average of 26^Th year in a row.

The sea ice in Antarctica dropped to 1.92 million km² on February 25, last year – tit has the lowest level on record and almost a million km² under the long-term definition – measuring from 1991 to 2020.

Arctic sea ice in September at the end of the summer melt tied to 11^Th The lowest monthly snowfall in the satellite record.

Rates of global mean sea level doubling within the first decade of the satellite record, WMO said.