Irreversible Loss of World's Ice Cover Should Spur Leaders into Action, Say Scientists

We need only look to the world's ice cover to see the urgency with which emissions need to come down, scientists told delegates at this week's climate talks in Bonn, Germany.

At a press conference June 9th, US and German scientists updated negotiators and journalists with the latest science on the state of Arctic sea ice, the Antarctic continent and thawing permafrost.

New observations gathered since the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report show the cryosphere in serious and irreversible decline, they warned.

Pam Pearson, director of the International Cryosphere Climate Initiative, the network of policy experts and researchers holding the event, told the audience:

"This is not like air pollution or water pollution, where if you clean it up it will go back to the way it was before."

Sea ice in decline

Arctic sea ice has been retreating rapidly in recent years as a result of greenhouse gases building up in the atmosphere, explained Dr Dirk Notz, sea ice expert at the Max Planck Institute in Germany.  The biggest losses are happening in summer, he said:

"Over the past 10 years or so, we've roughly seen a 50% loss of Arctic sea ice area.  So, the ice in the Arctic is currently retreating very, very rapidly."
...
In light of the wealth of new science, Pearson said she would like to see ambitions raised ahead of a global climate agreement in Paris later this year.  She said:

"It's clear that given these challenges, the current INDC's [Intended Nationally-Determined Contributions] are not sufficient."

Read more at Irreversible Loss of World's Ice Cover Should Spur Leaders into Action, Say Scientists