Resource information
Climate change is happening faster and
in a dramatically more visible way in the Earth's
cryosphere than anywhere else on earth. Cryosphere is
defined as elements of the Earth system containing water in
its frozen state. The average temperature has risen here at
over twice the global mean in the Arctic, Antarctic
Peninsula, and much of the Himalayas and other mountain
regions. This report summarizes the changes already being
observed in the following five major cryosphere regions: the
Andes, Antarctica, Arctic, East African Highlands, and the
Himalayas. It then provides a science-based assessment of
the impact of addressing methane and black carbon to reduce
the risk to the global environment and human societies,
especially for the most vulnerable populations. Chapter 2
provides a comprehensive assessment of the changes occurring
in these five regions, based on the most recent literature,
including the Fifth Assessment Report of the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (2013). Chapter 3
describes the pollution and climate nexus and the evolving
knowledge of how methane and black carbon impact climate
specifically in cryosphere regions. Chapter 4 presents the
background and methods used for new modeling work conducted
as part of this study, building extensively the United
Nations Environment Programme/World Meteorological
Organization Integrated Assessment of Black Carbon and Ozone
(2010). Chapter 5 presents the results of the new modeling
in these five major cryosphere regions as well as globally
for health, crop impacts, and climate. Finally, Chapter 6
discusses the implications and new directions for the
cryosphere regions emerging from these modeling results.
