Earth’s frozen regions are sending a clear warning about climate change – but politicians are ignoring it |
“We cannot negotiate with the melting point of ice.” That’s the message from more than 50 leading scientists who study the Earth’s frozen regions, published in the latest annual State of the Cryosphere report.
In the past year alone, the vast polar ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica are likely to have shed around 370 billion tonnes of ice, with a further 270 billion tonnes from the 270,000 mountain glaciers around the world, some of which are disappearing altogether.
In February 2025, global sea ice extent reached a new all-time minimum in the 47-year satellite record. Elsewhere, perennially frozen ground (called permafrost) continues to thaw, releasing additional greenhouse gas emissions each year that are roughly equivalent to the world’s eighth-highest-emitting country.
The warning lights from the cryosphere have been flashing red for several years, and governments ignore this at their peril.
Melting ice is driving an acceleration in the rate of sea-level rise, which has doubled to 4.5mm per year over the last three decades. If this acceleration continues, sea-level rise will reach around 1cm per year by the end of this century – a rate so high that many island and coastal communities will be forced to move.
The loss of mountain glaciers will affect billions of people who rely on their meltwater for agriculture, hydropower and other human activities; and the damage caused to infrastructure by Arctic permafrost thaw has been estimated to cost