The International Year for Glaciers' Preservation in 2025 put glaciers firmly on the global agenda. It is now time to follow through with concrete action, informed by science.
The cryosphere - including glaciers, ice sheets, permafrost, sea ice and snow - stores around 70% of Earth's freshwater. It is shrinking fast. Glaciers are losing mass every year; Arctic sea ice has declined by about 40% since 1979; and the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets are melting at accelerating rates, with long-term implications for sea level rise.
As a result, there are increasing challenges for water security, ecosystems, economies and disaster risk worldwide.
In response, the United Nations designated 21 March as World Day for Glaciers and proclaimed 2025 as the International Year of Glaciers' Preservation (IYGP 2025), implemented by the World Meteorological Organization and UNESCO.
"Protecting glaciers is not only about ice. It is about water, safety, ecosystems, and the future of millions of people," said WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo.
"We cannot stop glacier melt. And we cannot stop every hazard, but we can prepare for them through science-based monitoring, forecasting and early warning systems," she said in a video message to the closing ceremony at UNESCO, marking both World Glacier Day and World Water Day on 22 March.
Glacier Year provided the launch pad for the Decade of Action for Cryospheric Sciences (2025-2034). It will provide a longer-term framework and shift the focus from awareness to coordinated action, aligning research, observations and services and supporting delivery of actionable knowledge for decision-making.
"We can reduce risks and build resilience if we strengthen collaboration, improve monitoring, base decisions on science, and invest in the systems that protect people," said Celeste Saulo.
She outlined four key messages:
Collaboration
Glaciers do not recognize borders. They sustain communities, agriculture, ecosystems, and economies across regions. To preserve these shared resources - we must work together.
Monitoring
We must strengthen monitoring infrastructure, and invest in capacity building, data sharing, and science - WMO's core mandate.
Good decisions depend on good data and yet only 1 percent of the 15,000 registered surface monitoring stations around the globe are in mountain regions above 3000 meters. This means there are significant knowledge gaps.
Science
Science must guide our decisions: from disaster risk reduction to river basin management, from water planning to climate adaptation. During the Decade of Cryospheric Sciences, WMO will leverage its mandate to support the most crucial overarching theme: "Strengthening Cryosphere Observations."
"WMOs role in collecting, coordinating, and sharing cryosphere data remains clear and strong. Instead of multiple disconnected systems and programs that do not speak to each other, lets ensure that this decade is one of consolidation and coordination," said Celeste Saulo.
Investment and partnerships
We need targeted and transparent investment and partnerships with governments, international institutions, and the private sector.
Key Outcomes of the International Year of Glaciers' Preservation (IYGP)
IYGP elevated global visibility of glaciers as a policy issue; strengthened science-policy links; and broadened stakeholder engagement (including Indigenous and local knowledge) by bringing 400 organizations together.
It helped improve coordination of observations; assessed the data gaps and reinforced the need for an integrated, whole-cryosphere approach.
Decade of Action for Cryospheric Sciences (2025-2034)
WMO will contribute to the first overarching challenge of "Observations and Monitoring," which forms the basis for other challenges, including predictions, risk management and adaptation.
WMO is contributing by strengthening the Global Cryosphere Information System, advancing interoperable data standards and best practices, promoting data sharing, and supporting coordinated global cryosphere observations to ensure a sustained, accessible, and integrated global cryosphere data legacy.
A key focus will be ensuring the inclusion of research data and other non-traditional data sources, including Indigenous Knowledge. Strengthening the data system will be the highest priority of the WMO Global Cryosphere Watch (GCW) in the next year to ensure we have the data and information that is critical to deliver climate-cryosphere services.
The Decade of Action for Cryospheric Sciences will serve as a bridge between the International Year for Glaciers' Preservation and the fifth International Polar Year (2032-33), which is a long-standing tradition of science-led coordinated global polar research to build understanding of the role of polar regions in the Earth system.
