Greenland and Antarctica face major ice loss: Key details explained

According to new research based on satellite data Greenland and Argentina have lost vast amounts of ice over recent decades dating back to the 1970s with studies documenting major polar ice-sheet ablation.

The data from 27 satellite missions between 1979 and 2023 shows that Greenland and Antarctica lost a combined 11.3 trillions of ice adding 1.24 inches to the global mean sea-level rise.

The study utilizes the long satellite dataset of ice sheet variations ever gathered to give the most cumulative ice mass deficit report loss in Greenland and Antarctica. It was specifically conducted by the Ice Sheet Balance Inter-comparison Exercise international working group.

Climate scientist Ines Otosaka of Northumbria University in London said in a study published on Wednesday that the ice loss documented in the research is roughly about 60% from Greenland and 40% from Antarctica even though Greenland is only a fraction of Antarctica’s scale.

Meanwhile, record-breaking snowfall across East Antarctica provided enough ice accumulation to offset some of the losses from glaciers on Antarctica while cooler summers in Greenland significantly reduced surface melting. It has been observed that some 84% of the ice loss stems from glaciers flowing more quickly into the ocean rather than from ice melting at the surface.

Furthermore, researchers underlined that the total sea-level rise caused by ice losses in Greenland and Antarctica while deceptively minor puts an additional 6 to 9 million people globally at risk of coastal inundation and shoreline recession.