SROCC

The Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate (SROCC) is one of three special reports produced by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) during its Sixth Assessment cycle. It was approved by IPCC member governments at the 51st Session of the Panel in Monaco in September 2019 and released alongside its Summary for Policymakers on 25 September 2019.

SROCC was prepared by over 100 authors from roughly 30 countries and synthesised thousands of peer-reviewed publications. It covers two tightly linked Earth systems:

• The ocean, including sea-level rise, marine heatwaves, ocean warming, acidification, deoxygenation, and impacts on fisheries and coastal communities.
• The cryosphere, meaning the frozen parts of the planet: glaciers, ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica, Arctic sea ice, snow cover, permafrost, and high-mountain regions.

Key findings include that the global ocean has taken up more than 90% of the excess heat in the climate system since 1970, that the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets are losing mass at accelerating rates, and that global mean sea level rose faster in the 2006–2015 decade than over the 20th-century average. The report also projects that, under high-emission scenarios, some low-lying island states and densely populated coastal zones face existential risk by 2100 and beyond.

SROCC complements the IPCC's other 2018–2019 special reports — the Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5°C (SR15) and the Special Report on Climate Change and Land (SRCCL) — and feeds into the Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) working group volumes published in 2021–2022.

For delegates and researchers, SROCC is the standard reference cited in UNFCCC negotiations, AOSIS submissions, and policy debates over loss and damage, marine protected areas, and adaptation finance for coastal and mountain communities.