Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, pursuant to the Answer of 15 March 2017 to Question 66792, on climate change: snow and ice, whether there are declines of snow and ice, other than of Arctic Sea ice extent, that are inconsistent with reasonably expected national variability; and if he will make a statement.

The Department does not hold this information, but it can be found in the 5th assessment report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC AR5). This states that it is likely (greater than 66% probability) there has been human influence on: the observed retreat of glaciers since 1960s; reduction in northern hemisphere snow cover since 1970; and surface melting and mass loss of Greenland since 1993. These declines can be best explained by climate models that include human influences and not natural internal variability alone.