Are the land-based ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica continuing to lose mass (ice)?

The Greenland ice sheet's mass has rapidly declined in the last several years due to surface melting and iceberg calving. Research based on satellite data indicates that between 2002 and 2020, Greenland shed an average of 279 billion metric tons of ice per year, adding to global sea level rise. In these images, orange and red shades indicate areas that lost ice mass, while light blue shades indicate areas that gained ice mass. White indicates areas where there has been very little or no change in ice mass since 2002. Learn more. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Data from NASA's GRACE satellites, which measured Earth’s gravity field, show that the land ice sheets in both Antarctica (first chart here) and Greenland (second chart here) have been losing mass (ice) since 2002.

Land-based ice losses, like those in Greenland and Antarctica, make up the largest component of observed sea-level rise—even bigger than thermal expansion of the ocean due to global warming.

MORE INFORMATION