The Ice Circle is an international forum and a trust fund generating multi-institutional and trans-boundary response to the impact of changing snow and ice regimes. It will bring together policy makers, water users, community actors and scholars concerned with the water, ice and climate change challenge. Thus the Ice Circle will enable enhanced international co-operation, integration and information sharing as well as promoting research, mitigation and adaptation measures through its trust fund.



Changes to ice and snow regimes

Since the early 1980s there has been a substantial loss of ice and snow cover around the globe. Given the current melting rate, glaciers are expected to disappear from some mountain regions by the end of the 21st century. The areal extent of snow cover has declined at a rate of 1.3% per decade over the last 40 years. Rivers and lakes are covered by ice for ever-shorter periods. In a matter of years, according to recent research, the Arctic will be seasonally ice free for the first time in the entire history of human civilization, as summer after summer since 2000 the ice-free area continues to grow larger. While widespread permafrost thawing has not yet manifested itself, there has been a steady increase in permafrost temperatures during the last 20-30 years.



These and other changes to the cryosphere have a dramatic impact on human livelihoods, ecosystems, and the climate, as well as substantially increasing exposure to natural hazards around the globe.



Livelihoods

Ice sheets and glaciers are the world’s largest freshwater reservoirs, with some 70% of global freshwater stored in solid form. Over half of the world’s population lives in watersheds of major rivers originating in mountains with glaciers and snow. Changes in the mass of glaciers and their eventual disappearance will upset the supply and flow characteristics of rivers receiving glacier melt water. This will affect millions of people — particularly in the Himalayas, Central Asia and the Andes — who depend upon these rivers for domestic use, food production and industry. Arid and semi-arid regions are likely to be the most adversely affected. In addition to the substantial contribution of ice, snow in mountain regions contributes to water supplies for almost one-sixth of the world’s population. Changes in snow cover will therefore also have a dramatic impact on water resources.



Changes in snow cover and ice will also affect tourism, winter recreation and Arctic indigenous people whose existence is based on living with ice. 

 

Ecosystems

Ice is the natural habitat for a wide range of organisms from bacteria to polar bears that risk extinction as ice cover diminishes. Changes in snow cover — an important ecological factor — will have significant implications for plants, animals and ecosystems that depend on it. Thawing of permafrost areas has the potential to transform habitats from boreal forests to wetlands. Increased glacier melt to rivers can affect ecosystems in a number of ways, including habitat changes and the release of pollutants deposited and stored in the glaciers over many years.



Climate

Ice plays an integral role in major weather systems and in setting the temperature of Earth’s atmosphere and oceans. Decline in the cover of snow and ice will affect climate globally as less sunlight is reflected from the planet. Ocean and air circulation distributing heat around the planet risk being changed due to increased freshwater influx to the oceans, altering global ocean circulation and temperature patterns.



Natural hazards

Ice stores the largest amount of water after the oceans and most of it is located on land. The release of melt water from ice masses into the oceans will therefore have a major impact on sea level. The current rate of global sea level rise is approximately 3.2 mm per year. Sea levels could rise by one metre or more this century, threatening more than 60 million people and 200 billion USD in assets in developing countries alone. This development will make it more difficult to protect coastal cities and infrastructure from damage from extreme weather. Unstable shorelines will threaten infrastructure. Salt water may degrade drinking-water sources, wetlands and agriculture.



Retreating glaciers and melting ice create conditions that substantially increase the risk of catastrophic flooding, debris flows, ice avalanches and landslides. Floods associated with these changes have been observed in the Himalayas, the Andes and Patagonia, and have endangered lives, infrastructure and power supplies, as well as intensified the risk of diseases associated with floods. Permafrost thawing can affect infrastructure by causing instability of building foundations.



Gaps in knowledge and institutional capacity

Despite the wide ranging consequences brought about by changes to ice and snow regimes around the globe, no international entity serves as a focal point for information on and response to the socioeconomic and environmental impact of those changes in a global context.



There is a need for research, monitoring and modelling to fill information gaps in respect of glaciers, ice and snow cover. Too little is known of the rate of these changes, and their implications on human security and the ecosystem services provided by the cryosphere. Comprehensive analysis and identification of measures to mitigate the situation resulting from those changes should be undertaken. There is also a need for co-operation in respect of information sharing and the generation of adaptive strategies and programmes.

 
The Ice Circle’s functions

The Ice Circle will serve four key functions to generate comprehensive and long-lasting responses to challenges brought by changes to the cryosphere:

​

• Forum: The Ice Circle will foster collaboration in the development of effective policy strategies, action programmes and other solutions to challenges brought about by melting ice and reduced snow cover.
• Fund: The Ice Circle will manage a trust fund (aim 10-20 million USD) that will support programmes globally strengthening research, assessing vulnerability to changes in the cryosphere and introducing effective mitigation and adaptation measures.
• Advocacy: The Ice Circle will raise awareness of the issues at stake and engage in high-level advocacy in specific countries and regions to promote appropriate responses to changes in the cryosphere. Its representatives will participate in international dialogue on water, the environment and development to ensure that issues relating to the cryosphere are represented. It will be a one-stop destination for information on the relationship snow and ice has with humans and the environment.
• Academic platform: The Ice Circle will accommodate a new academic venue – The Lights of the Future — that provides structured opportunities for PhD scholars from across the globe and across disciplines to connect and generate new information on the topic of climate change, ice and water. 

The Ice Circle will not reinvent, but rather draw upon existing initiatives focused on water and related issues to leverage focus on the cryosphere. The Ice Circle is planned as an initiative for a five-year period with the specific aim of bringing the cryosphere agenda into the mainstream of the larger water, climate change and development dialogue and their related action plans. 



Institutional arrangements

The Ice Circle is the fruit of collaboration between the World Bank, the Global Water Partnership, the NGO Vox Naturae and renowned environmental experts sitting on Vox Naturae’s International Steering Committee.



Interested partners and donors will be invited to a preparatory meeting in Iceland in early 2013. The initiative will be officially established in September 2013 in the context of a multimedia event in Iceland celebrating glaciers and communicating their message of change. This event marks the launch of a global awareness-raising initiative on glaciers led by Vox Naturae.

​

The institutional structure and implementing mechanism of the Ice Circle will be discussed and agreed to at the preparatory meeting planned in Iceland in early 2013. A draft proposal outlining the Institutional arrangements will be circulated to all interested partners and donors in January 2013.