Sea levels rose throughout the last century, but the report found they have risen twice as fast over the last two decades, accelerated by warming temperatures, glacial and ice sheet melt and loss of sea ice. Coastal communities throughout the world, including many Indigenous communities in the Arctic, are already experiencing challenges to their way of life and livelihoods. They will grow more vulnerable to more frequent flooding events and water stress.\u00a0 <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The special report, like last year\u2019s 1.5 \u00b0C report<\/a>, represents a massive\nand coordinated global effort: more than 100 authors from 36 countries assessed\nmore than 7,000 sources that comprise the latest science on the oceans and cryosphere,\nor the frozen components of the earth system, including snow, glaciers, lake\nand sea ice, icebergs and permafrost. Schuur met with other lead authors and\ngovernment delegates last week in Monaco to approve the full report.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt\u2019s been rewarding to help\npull together the latest science with experts from around the world,\u201d Schuur\nsaid. \u201cSo many people on Earth depend on these two interlocked systems, oceans\nand cryosphere. We worked with government delegates to make sure we communicated\nthe best and most important assessment of the current state so that communities\ncan take action to adapt and manage risks.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIf we reduce emissions sharply, consequences\nfor people and their livelihoods will still be challenging, but potentially\nmore manageable for those who are most vulnerable,\u201d said Hoesung Lee, chair of\nthe IPCC. \u201cWe increase our ability to build resilience and there will be more\nbenefits for sustainable development.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Air temperature in\nthe Arctic is warming twice as fast as the rest of the planet, and the SROCC report\nauthors found that even if global warming is kept well below 2 \u00b0C, a quarter of\nnear-surface permafrost will thaw by the year 2100. In a higher-emissions\nscenario, nearly three-quarters of that permafrost might disappear. And as it\nthaws, permafrost releases greenhouse gases, a dynamic that has\npotentially big consequences for global temperatures. This addition of\ngreenhouse gases to the atmosphere is offset by the proliferation of\ncarbon-capturing plants in the warming Arctic, and where this see-saw stands is\ncritically important to designing and updating climate predictions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Because of the remoteness of some permafrost regions and the inability to track changes in greenhouse gases there with remote sensing tools, permafrost has been harder to track as accurately and frequently as other cryosphere indicators. To do that, we need better systems to track carbon flux in permafrost regions. Schuur, SROCC contributing author Christina Sch\u00e4del<\/strong> (Ecoss) and David Lawrence of the National Center for Atmospheric Research recently received a four-year grant from the National Science Foundation to expand the Permafrost Carbon Network<\/a> and a high-latitude carbon flux database. By inviting inputs from a global web of researchers and encouraging more synthesis, the team looks to bring permafrost carbon tracking in line with sea ice, glacial and temperature monitoring systems. \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe can save the cryosphere,\u201d Schuur told Science<\/em><\/a> this week. \u201cThe rapidity of change sometimes leads people to think it\u2019s too late, and it\u2019s not.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wordpresst\/uploads\/sites\/153\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/IPCCdelegate_photo-1024x576.jpeg\")
![\"NAU](\"http:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wordpresst\/uploads\/sites\/153\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/NAU_primary-281_3514-1-e1536853679171.png\")
<\/figure>