Brief Summary of IPPCC Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate

The IPPCC Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate Summary for Policy Makers is divided into three sections to simplify the scientific research on the matter and allow a straightforward and factual understanding for policy makers' adaptation and mitigation strategies.The paper is divided into three categories: Observed changes and Impacts, Projected Changes and Risks and Implementing responses to ocean and cryosphere change, with a specific focus on physical changes themselves, the impacts on ecosystems and finally the impacts on people and its services.

 

Researchers have high confidence in the impact of climate change on the cryosphere and the ocean: glaciers melting and reduction of Arctic sea ice, increase in the permafrost temperature as well as in the global mean sea level (GMSL) and in the sea surface temperature, all registered with an increasing frequency in the last 50 years. The consequences of these events include ocean acidification, increase in extreme events such as tropical cyclones and rainfall as well as the release of all the stored CO2 which was preserved in the ice sheets.

The repercussions of these changes in the ecosystem are both experienced on coastal regions as well as high mountains, both on the autochthonous flora as well as fauna, thus modifying the seasonal cycles, ecologically, culturally and economically.

The impacts of such climate changes and its fallouts affect various communities' livelihoods in different ways based on their vulnerability. It has been identified as well that drawing from Indigenous people's knowledge benefited adaptation efforts.

 

Until 2050, the above mentioned impacts on cryosphere as well as ocean are expected to increase at a growing rate with high confidence due to the surface air temperature increase. In the second half of the 21st century, the events would be further influenced by the high greenhouse gas emissions which would continuously raise the global sea level exacerbating coastal hazards. GHG emissions would otherwise positively reduce the extreme events in case of their reduction after 2050.

Furthermore, the projections with regard to the changes in cryosphere include heavy changes in the global biodiversity: species will re-distribute to adapt, impacting their composition and therefore food availability with the highest impact in the tropics. Once again, the risks of severe impacts on ecosystems are much reduced at lower emissions scenarios with high confidence.

Finally, an important change which communities will face with future cryosphere evolution is the access to water resources and their use (e.g. hydropower, irrigation etc).

 

Countries are faced with a heavy challenge: to develop and implement climate change response policies which are adaptable from global to local scale trying to create a pathway where communities with highest vulnerability are not discriminated.

In order to maintain the benefits and services which ocean and cryosphere-related ecosystems have to offer us, we must put our focus in protecting them, through natural protected areas, restore them, through ecosystem management, species relocation and habitat restoration, and strengthen them, by improving our responsiveness to the impacts driven by climate change.

Moreover, ocean renewable energy can be an effective economic opportunity as well.

In order to achieve climate resilience and sustainable development, governments must boost their cooperation and coordination towards more ambitious adaptation policies. Important variables to consider as well are climate education, sharing of data and information as well as environmental finance in order to enable a long term resilience and participation in context-specific adaptation.

References:

'Summary for Policymakers' in Pörtner, H.O., D.C. Roberts, V. Masson-Delmotte, P. Zhai, M. Tignor, E. Poloczanska, K. Mintenbeck, A. Alegría, M. Nicolai, A. Okem, J. Petzold, B. Rama, N.M. Weyer (eds.) IPCC special report on the ocean and cryosphere in a changing climate (IPCC, 2019).