A Safe Warming Limit for Earth's Ice Is Closer to 1.0 Degrees Celsius
The International Cryosphere Climate Initiative released its annual assessment of the planet's snow and ice on Nov. 2, 2026. ICCI states that a truly safe temperature for Earth's ice is now thought to be closer to 1.0 °C of warming, or even below, over the coming centuries, and that a return to the Paris Agreement target of 1.5 °C would slow ice loss without reaching that level.
The group released State of the Cryosphere 2026: The Cost of Overshoot alongside a companion volume it wrote with the UN Environment Programme, Overshoot and the Cryosphere: Averting Global Meltdown. ICCI says the two reports set out the global impacts of ice loss under overshoot, showing which of those impacts are already locked in and which can still be stopped or slowed.
Among the new observations the assessment draws from the past year is Switzerland's loss of 20% of its glacier ice in the past five years. The report also describes accelerating sea-level rise from rapid ice loss, and growing water shortages and mountain hazards as glaciers disappear and snow drought, a lasting shortfall of snow, spreads.
By ICCI's account, current levels of warming are already unsafe for the Arctic, the Antarctic, mountain glaciers and the polar oceans, and overshoot must be kept to the absolute minimum because many of the consequences of ice loss would be irreversible.
The assessment is the latest in ICCI's annual State of the Cryosphere series, with more than 50 leading cryosphere scientists having reviewed and supported it. It is deposited under the DOI 10.5281/zenodo.23478059, and ICCI has posted a copy for download on its own page.
