Letter to colleagues enclosing the report Melting Snow and Ice: A Call for Action

Dear colleague                                                                     Oslo, February 2010

I would like to present to you the enclosed report Melting Snow and Ice: A Call for Action, which was launched at the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December 2009 by me and Former US Vice President Al Gore. 

The report examines the dramatic increase in the melting of ice – one of the most visible manifestations of global warming due to human activity. This is a matter of growing concern, not only in the Arctic region, where relatively few people live, but also in regions utterly dependent on fresh water supplies from ice caps and glaciers, such as the Himalayas and the Andes. As many as 1.5 billion people in various parts of the world could be deprived of their most vital resource – water. This could threaten millions of lives and global security. Melting in the polar areas will also have worldwide implications in the form of rising global sea levels and accelerating global warming.  

In April 2009, climate scientists and foreign ministers from states affected by melting ice and snow brought the attention of the world to the plight of the cryosphere at a conference entitled Melting Ice: Regional Dramas, Global Wake-Up Call. As co-chairs of the conference, Al Gore and I charged a group of leading scientists to summarise what we know about how fast this melting is occurring, and how it will affect the earth and its climate. 

Those scientists have now completed their work. 

Their report has a clear and convincing message:

• The Greenland ice cap is melting three times as fast as it was ten years ago.
• Snow cover is diminishing, and glaciers from the Himalayas to the Alps are melting rapidly, with the greatest reductions in the Andes and the Rockies.
• The previous figures from the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which were published in 2007, indicated that sea levels would rise by almost half a metre by 2100; this is now a minimum estimate. Since the rate of melting in Greenland and other areas is now faster than anticipated, it is now estimated that sea levels will rise between 0.5 and 1.5 metres by 2100. This will affect many hundreds of millions of people living in coastal areas.
• When snow and sea ice melt, less sunlight is reflected away from the surface of the Earth, and when permafrost melts, more methane and CO2 are released. Both these changes further increase global warming and thus cause ice to melt even faster.
• The melting of glaciers can cause extensive water shortages. Today, more than a billion people depend on water from the Himalayan plateau, which is often referred to as the “third pole”. 

The accelerating rate at which the ice is melting demonstrates very clearly what could happen in the absence of early, bold and sustained action to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions. Even if early and strong action is taken to mitigate global warming, the regions most affected by melting ice will still have to undertake a wide range of adaptation measures. This is a dramatic wake-up call with global repercussions that must inform the climate negotiations and add greater urgency to the commitment to establish a more ambitious and effective global regime to combat climate change.

I hope that this report will prove useful and contribute to your important work. 

Yours sincerely
Jonas Gahr Støre