Capacity for the Cryosphere: Meeting the Challenge

2020 is a crucial year where governments need to draft a plan whether to take concrete steps to keep the global temperature rise at 1.5°C. However, the knowledge that policymakers withhold on the role that the cryosphere – snow and ice regions – plays in facilitating the rise of the global temperature is minimal. The cryosphere is amazingly sensitive to small changes in temperature; the difference between the 1°C above pre-industrial temperatures where we are today, and 2°C cause very different planetary states, including the difference between a few meters of sea-level rise, to well above 20 meters.